]]>Whether you’re a full-time van dweller or you’ve rented a motorhome to visit the sights of Spain, one question that might have crossed your mind is, ‘Should I take my campervan to Jerez de la Frontera?’ Watch our video highlights and read on to find out what Lou and I thought about taking a campervan to Jerez.

WATCH THE VIDEO:

After our epic visit(s) to Cadiz, we headed north-west into the zone of Andalucia known as the ‘Sherry Triangle’. This lived up to its mysterious name by blanketing us with fog on the drive. Of the three towns that make up the so-called triangle, Jerez is the largest and most well known, having given its name to the region’s most famous export, Sherry – a mispronunciation of the original name, Xeres.

In this article we’ll show you where you can park your campervan or motorhome in Jerez; give you some tips on using public transport in Jerez; explain why touring a sherry bodega is a ‘must do’ activity and introduce you to the venue that made us fall in love with the traditional music of Spain, flamenco. Read this and you will be able to answer the question, ‘Should I take my campervan to Jerez?’

Where to park your campervan or motorhome overnight in Jerez

Lou and I always prefer to wild camp. However, when we are visiting larger towns and cities, the security of our campervan is of paramount importance. So, we were happy to find an excellent secure parking facility in Jerez: La Morada del Sur the site of a former industrial building, located in the north-east of the City on Avenue Tio Pepe (36.713,-6.1097). This overnight parking for campervans and motorhomes in Jerez is 15 euros per night.

For the price you get a hot shower, electricity, water, wi-fi and waste disposal, not to mention a free glass of sherry! After 9pm the gate is locked and you are given an electronic fob to enter. Next door is a basic restaurant serving breakfast and on weekend evenings, grilled meats. Although La Morada del Sur is not cheap, it still compares favourably with a campsite.

Public transport in Jerez de la Frontera

We found almost no information on public transport in Jerez de la Frontera before we arrived. There is a metro planned in Jerez but it has not been built. Of course, you can get the train to Cadiz or Seville but within the city, unless you have your own bicycle with you, you will have to rely on the public bus system.

From your parking in La Morada del Sur it is approximately a one hour walk to the historic centre of Jerez. Alternatively, you can take the number 16 bus from just over the road. It’s worth noting on weekends, the services are highly irregular with a gap of several hours in the middle of the day. Don’t make the same mistake we did and end up having to book a taxi. A single bus fare costs 1.10 euros and the taxi fare is approximately 10 euros.

Taking a sherry tour in Jerez

You probably don’t like sherry. Do not think because you are in the region of Jerez, you will suddenly start to like it either. To really appreciate this fortified wine, you need to see how it is made and taste it in the company of an expert.

Lou and I visited two sherry Bodegas in Jerez. Bodegas Tradicionwas highly rated on TripAdvisor and we can confirm it was excellent. A lovely guide called Ulrike explained to us the fascinating process of sherry production and more importantly tasted their expensive range with us, accompanied by some tasty nibbles that paired well. With bottles starting around 55 euros we were glad no attempt was made to sell us any!

Although Bodegas Tradicion was quite pricey at 30 euros per person it compared very favourably with the second tour we did at Gonzalez-Byass – one of the world’s largest wine producers and owners of the famous Tio Pepe brand of sherry. Here, we were grouped with ten other people and shown barrels of sherry signed by among others, Bobby Charlton and Margaret Thatcher…

After an hour or so of being shown various barrels and having technical information thrown at us, we finally were allowed to sit down and taste. For 21 euros we tasted four different sherries, all of which were bog-standard. The miserly portions of cheese and nuts did little to compliment them. Of course, we could have tasted their top of the line sherry… but that would have cost 30 euros each. We exited via the gift shop!

The bottom line on sherry tours in Jerez: You get what you pay for. In our opinion, if you have to pick one Bodega to visit, it should be a small one where your custom is valued, your tour is more personal and the quality of the produce is higher. Just make sure you don’t miss out because you cannot get this experience anywhere else in the world.

Where to go in Jerez in the evening

Don’t be fooled into thinking you need to pay to see flamenco in Jerez. Lou and I chanced upon the wonderful Tabanco a la Feria(In Jerez, a tabanco is a bar where they serve sherry, usually straight from barrels). We turned up at around 6pm when it was closed and saw the signs on the door stating tapas were one euro each and we returned at 8pm just as they opened the doors. Not only was the tapas one euro, so was the sherry… and the beer!

On the internet, Tabanco al la Feria was described as having walls adorned with bull-fighting memorabilia. Well, thankfully the times are changing and they’ve had a more neutral makeover. Slowly the bar began to fill and at 10pm we were treated to a performance of live flamenco from a local trio. We hope the raw and emotional power comes across in our video.

The show was finished by midnight and we got chatting to some locals who took us to their favourite late-night watering hole. Coincidentally we had passed Tabanco Romate earlier in the day when it was empty. Built around a large courtyard it almost felt as if we were inside, such was the warmth of this huge throng, chatting and smoking. The place was still heaving when we stumbled out about 3am.

Other dining options in Jerez de la Frontera

If flamenco isn’t your thing or you just want a higher quality of food than you get in a tabanco, then our favourite place to eat in Jerez was Bistro RigodonIt was a cold day outside but the cosy surroundings of this petite place and the offerings of home-cooked moussaka and tartiflette warmed us to the core. We were actually lucky as they weren’t meant to be serving food at 4pm but the chef-owner was very nice to us!

Thanks for reading ‘Should I take my Campervan to Jerez de la Frontera’. We hope you enjoyed it. We would love to hear from you, so please feel free to email us on antlou [at] vanutopia.com and don’t forget you can stay right up to date with all of our antics by following us on social: Facebook; Instagram; Twitter and subscribing to our YouTube channel.

]]>http://vanutopia.com/our-adventure/take-my-campervan-to-jerez/feed/0Six Great Reasons to Visit Cadiz in Winterhttp://vanutopia.com/our-adventure/six-reasons-visit-cadiz-winter/
http://vanutopia.com/our-adventure/six-reasons-visit-cadiz-winter/#commentsWed, 17 Jan 2018 14:00:22 +0000http://vanutopia.com/?p=5509The Andalucian city of Cadiz is like no other: A city of charm and romance where every plaza is a suntrap and you’re never more than a ten-minute walk to the sea. Take a look at this video we shot and be inspired to visit Cadiz in winter. WATCH THE VIDEO: Although we live in …

]]>The Andalucian city of Cadiz is like no other: A city of charm and romance where every plaza is a suntrap and you’re never more than a ten-minute walk to the sea. Take a look at this video we shot and be inspired to visit Cadiz in winter.

WATCH THE VIDEO:

Although we live in a campervan, Lou and I spent two months pet-sitting in a nearby town. We were able to make two separate day-trips and spent a weekend with our tiny-travelling-home parked within the walls of Cadiz. You can check out photos from our first visit HERE!

In this article, we’ll give you six great reasons why you should visit Cadiz in winter and give you some hot tips on where to eat, drink and sleep. For campervan dwellers, we suggest a safe place to park in this sublime city.

1. A stroll through Cadiz is magical

The ‘old town’ is a compact grid of narrow streets that echo with Spanish banter emanating from friendly locals. Somehow, the streets of Cadiz simultaneously shelter you from cold winds and warm you with illuminating shafts of sunlight. Behind the stunning Cathedral is the sea wall, with a vibe reminiscent of the Malecon in Havana – A strip of sandstone where people go to drink a few beers, hang out or simply take a walk.

You can cross Cadiz on foot in fifteen minutes but there’s enough variety in the layout that you can still lose yourself amongst the buildings’ peeling paint and gnarley stonework. At night, the streets are bathed in yellow floodlights and every little bar appears to be a cosy nook in which to grab a beer.

One of the gems of Cadiz is the town beach – Whilst Playa de la Caleta is less popular in winter due to the cold water temperatures and cool breeze, you will have room to move, unlike in summer! Spaniards are keen observers of seasonal behaviour so you won’t find them dressed in swimmers, but it’s possible to come to Cadiz and sunbathe on the beach even in December and January.

2. Cadiz in winter is the perfect temperature

Avoid the 40C heat of summer. On the three occasions, Lou and I visited Cadiz in winter, the city basked in sunshine and the daytime temperature reached as high as 23C. The winter sun in Cadiz has a heat that can’t be found in other parts of Europe. Walking around at night it was necessary to wear a coat. However, compared to December or January in the UK we found it extremely mild at around thirteen degrees. Albeit with strong winds. There is a fifty-fifty chance it will rain on any given day but the Atlantic breezes mean the rain never sets in for long.

3. Cadiz Central Market is pure vibes

Seafood is top dog in Cadiz and there’s no better place to sample it, than in the Mercado Central de Cadiz. You cannot miss this place! At midday, every Saturday this rectangle of shabby-chic stalls and eateries comes alive with the buzz of locals buying their evening meal, snacking on tapas, drinking a beer and catching up with friends and family. Despite the informality of the alfresco dining at the Mercado Central, there is an up-market vibe.

It’s not all seafood either – Cheese and wine, Jamon Iberico and the other ethnic foods are for sale. Our favourite? The incredible empanadas from the Argentine place. Prices range from a euro up to ten, so there’s something to suit every budget and in the true tapas style, if you want, you can try a little of everything.

By two o’clock any tables and chairs have long since been inhabited and it’s standing room only. By four o’clock, the place is packed and getting rowdier by the minute, due in part to the astoundingly cheap beer. A half-litre of Cruz Campo will set you back just 2 Euros. This compares very favourably with local tapas bars where a small beer is around 1.30 Euros. Cadiz is so cheap compared to other European cities.

4. So many great value places to eat in Cadiz

Whilst the central market is definitely your go-to place for lunch or a snack, you might want something a little classier of an evening. At Ultramar y Nosthere was a place for us in our preferred location: At the bar! This restaurant is a solid choice if you’re looking for an international take on Spanish cuisine. We enjoyed a pulled pork burger and some fried baby squid. They also do a good Brut Nature Cava (‘Skinny Champagne’ equivalent) at 2.50 Euros a glass and main dishes are between eight and twelve Euros which is relatively expensive.

Our favourite spot for dinner was La Isleta de la Vina. This trendy, modern tapas bar has low ceilings and a snug atmosphere that gets another huge thumbs up from us. The tapas dishes here boast some imaginative combinations. One excellent dish you can see pictured in the video was a hunk of tender white fish, served with caramelised carrots and dates, creamed potatoes and a cumquat marmalade. This was sensational and cost only seven euros. You will need two of such dishes to fill you up but that’s ok because you’ll want to taste everything!

5. Cadiz has secure parking for cars, campervans and motorhomes

Considering Cadiz is a landlocked town there is an impressive array of parking options. If you are taking a hire car into Cadiz you can park in one of many underground car parks, although prices can be steep at ten to fifteen euros for a day trip. For campervans and owners of larger motorhomes, our recommended place to park is ParkingSanta Catalina. This is a patrolled car park, right on the tip of the peninsula, next to the sea wall. There is space here for huge RVs and although there are no facilities you can use the bathrooms at the Castillo de Santa Catalina just a few minutes walk. Our bill for two nights was 28 euros. Just hose off the sea spray when you leave!

6. It’s easy to get to Cadiz and cheap in winter

Don’t have a bed-on-wheels? No tiny-travelling-home? No worries! If you aren’t a van dweller then the easiest way to get to Cadiz is to take a flight to Jerez de la Frontera and catch the train to Cadiz station. Seville airport is slightly further but may have cheaper flights. Looking for a cheap place to stay in Cadiz? Cadiz Inn Backpackers has private double rooms starting from around 30 Euros per night in winter.

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Thanks for reading ‘Six Great Reasons to Visit Cadiz in Winter’. We hope you enjoyed it. We would love to hear from you, so please feel free to email us on antlou [at] vanutopia.com and don’t forget you can stay right up to date with all of our antics by following us on social: Facebook; Instagram; Twitter and subscribing to our YouTube channel.

]]>http://vanutopia.com/our-adventure/six-reasons-visit-cadiz-winter/feed/2A flavour of Cadiz: The top 12 photos from our first afternoonhttp://vanutopia.com/our-adventure/a-flavour-of-cadiz-top-12-photos/
http://vanutopia.com/our-adventure/a-flavour-of-cadiz-top-12-photos/#respondWed, 15 Nov 2017 19:18:52 +0000http://vanutopia.com/?p=5295These photos were shot on our first trip to Cadiz from our base in nearby Chiclana de la Frontera. There’s still lots we haven’t seen yet. This was just a flavour of Cadiz. We parked in one of the many underground car parks and took a leisurely stroll through narrow streets. The weather in November …

]]>These photos were shot on our first trip to Cadiz from our base in nearby Chiclana de la Frontera. There’s still lots we haven’t seen yet. This was just a flavour of Cadiz.

We parked in one of the many underground car parks and took a leisurely stroll through narrow streets. The weather in November was sunny with blue skies and temperatures around 20 degrees. People were sitting outside cafe’s drink coffee and eating tomato spread on toast.

The central market was buzzing with activity and all the fish very neatly presented. The adjoining food stalls were quite upmarket but prices were very reasonable. A cold beer was only 1 EUR! We walked along the sea wall towards the famous Cathedral. It reminded us of the Malecon in Havana.

We were pleasantly surprised by the mellow vibe in this compact town and we intend to visit at least one more time between now and New Year. This means we’ll be able to bring you a more detailed guide to Cadiz in due course. Here are a few of the highlights from our first visit. Feel free to leave a comment!

]]>http://vanutopia.com/our-adventure/a-flavour-of-cadiz-top-12-photos/feed/0The Truth About What it’s Really Like Pet Sittinghttp://vanutopia.com/our-adventure/really-like-pet-sitting/
http://vanutopia.com/our-adventure/really-like-pet-sitting/#respondWed, 08 Nov 2017 18:49:42 +0000http://vanutopia.com/?p=5257You find this sweet looking place on Trusted House Sitters. A modern villa close to the beach. There’s even a pool. Plus it’s a stone’s throw from a historic port town. The owners are going to be away for two months over the holiday period. A luxurious retreat in warmer climes, rent-free! All you have …

]]>You find this sweet looking place on Trusted House Sitters. A modern villa close to the beach. There’s even a pool. Plus it’s a stone’s throw from a historic port town. The owners are going to be away for two months over the holiday period. A luxurious retreat in warmer climes, rent-free! All you have to do in return is look after the pets and keep the house clean. You think it sounds easy. But is it really? Now we’ve lived this scenario for a week, we’re going to break down our day so you can see the truth about what it’s really like Pet Sitting.

08:00 Feeding time:

The phrase ‘horses for courses’ might be an inappropriate term to use when talking about a dog’s dinner but thankfully, there are no tins of meaty chunks around these parts. No. The owners of this house, cook food specifically for their dogs. We can’t just open a tin of Pedigree Chum and be done. We have to cater for the pampered pooches in their usual style, so we cook up a batch of carb-rich chickpeas and blend it with the remains of the fruit from our own juicing exploits. Then we top this off with tasty chunks of liver and steak. A breakfast fit for humans. If we cooked the meat.

09:00 Breakfast time:

Access to a full-size kitchen means we have developed a new appreciation for fridge freezers. More importantly, there’s a juicer and a blender we can use to start our day with a fresh-fruit smoothie. (Check out Lou’s Campervan Cooking column for culinary inspiration!) The battery in our campervan can’t provide enough power for a blender. These modern conveniences have really kick-started our motivation to eat more healthy. It’s as if we never left home, with the added bonus we’re not paying the utility bills.

10:00 Running time:

We take the dogs for a run rather than a walk. There’s a choice of two routes: Turning right out of the gate results in systematically aggravating every hound in the ‘hood when we jog down the street. The intense cauldron of barking makes the dogs pull hard on their leads. So, we’re limited to going in the other direction – Left, through the forest. The sandy tracks beneath the cork and pine trees are relatively safe for dogs despite them being used by horse riders and quad bikers. It’s a shame the area isn’t larger and not surrounded by new-build holiday homes.

11:00 Chores time:

Even this far South, we can’t escape the effects of winter, which means more rain. A storm dumped a load of sand down on the 80sq metre patio, as well as some snails! So, we had to sweep and mop all of the tiles. Then there’s the front garden, a large portion of which is grass. It’s growing like crazy and we need to get the mower out. Inside, the dogs shed the sand they’ve picked up on their run all over the tiled floor, so that also needs regular cleaning. There’s no end of maintenance required to keep a large property in shape.

12:00 Swim time:

You look in the pool and it’s full of big fat flying ants and other creepy-crawlies, not to mention all the pine needles. Pools are great when you don’t have to clean them. First, we get the net out and remove all the debris. Then we hoover the bottom. (Sadly, no robot cleaner). We test the water pH levels to makes sure there’s not too much or too little chlorine. Finally, we clean the filters, which is surprisingly complex if you’ve never done it before. Sadly, we can’t do anything to increase the water temperature. The cool night-time conditions and low winter sun mean it never warms up!

13:00 Shop time:

Nearby, the only shops are aimed at tourists staying in local resorts. It’s an 18km round-trip to the nearest decent supermarket. In our campervan, there’s always a shop en-route to our destination so this is frustratingly inconvenient. We spend more time and use more petrol which increases the cost to us compared to our usual campervan lifestyle. On the upside, our proximity to the sea means we can purchase affordable fresh fish as a treat. At least with a working fridge freezer, we’re able to stretch out one shop for the entire week.

14:00 Work time:

In summer it would be 30 degrees Celsius by now. Whilst the pets are snoozing in the soporific heat, it’s the perfect time to write up an article like this. Except that it’s not 30 degrees, it’s 20 degrees. Not warm enough to sedate the dogs, who emit a sharp, throaty bark every few minutes, designed to remind you that they are very important and you should take them for a walk at the earliest possible opportunity. Or just to annoy the neighbours.

18:00 Walkies time:

With our faithful hounds in tow, it’s back to the forest we go. Luckily the dogs can be trusted off a lead, according to the owners. The speed at which they bound through the bushes is amusingly care-free. More worrying is the proximity to the horse riding centre where there is a hole in the fence. We only let one dog off the lead at a time. The bitch has a habit of legging it through the fence on the other side of the forest and not returning for an hour. Thankfully she’s able to find her way home. This is quite nerve-wracking but the owners seem to treat it as normal.

19:00 TV time:

On the road, we’d be in bed watching a downloaded movie because the internet isn’t fast enough for streaming. In this place, we have a massive television with Netflix and Amazon Prime. Most importantly there’s a huge sofa to curl up on. The dogs stretch out on their massive beds unless the cats have decided to hog it, but they sit on us more frequently now they learned we are the food givers. We’ve been watching Stranger Things on Netflix which was incredibly enjoyable.

22:00 Bedtime:

One cat stays in at night but has to be let out first for a pee. The other two stay out at night. There’s no catflap. The dogs sleep in the hallway so we have to move their beds from the living room and shut the door, or they’ll eat the cats’ food. Frequently none of the animals wants to move from their cosy comfort zones so getting them all into the right places can be a bit of a chore. One we’ve done that we retire to our ensuite bedroom. The bed is only a standard size double but it feels like a queen compared to what we’re used to in our campervan.

So, what is the truth about what it’s really like Pet Sitting?

Pet Sitting is not an easy ride.

We’re here to provide for five different animals, each of which has differing needs.

The property alone is a challenge to clean due to its size.

We do not get paid money for Pet Sitting.

Something we’ll examine more closely is how you can make Pet Sitting into a job that pays. (Watch out for a piece on that shortly). Of course, the villa is more comfortable than our campervan. But the van feels like home. Right now, Pet Sitting is just a good way for us to escape the cold winter months and be in the company of animals.

***

Thanks for reading ‘One week on: The truth about what it’s really like Pet Sitting’. We hope you enjoyed it. We would love to hear from you so please feel free to email us on antlou [at] vanutopia.com and don’t forget you can stay right up to date with all of our antics by following us on social media: Facebook; Instagram; Twitter and subscribing to our YouTube channel.

]]>http://vanutopia.com/our-adventure/really-like-pet-sitting/feed/0Grape Harvesting in Burgundy: Good Hard Fun (Part 2)http://vanutopia.com/our-adventure/grape-harvesting-burgundy-part-2/
http://vanutopia.com/our-adventure/grape-harvesting-burgundy-part-2/#commentsFri, 20 Oct 2017 17:48:52 +0000http://vanutopia.com/?p=5101This is the ultimate in-depth story of what it’s like Grape Harvesting. Is it a great way to earn money, make friends and have fun while you’re travelling? Read on to get a deeper insight into what it’s like Grape Harvesting in Burgundy, France. This article is the follow-up to Becoming Vendangers: Good Hard Fun …

]]>This is the ultimate in-depth story of what it’s like Grape Harvesting. Is it a great way to earn money, make friends and have fun while you’re travelling? Read on to get a deeper insight into what it’s like Grape Harvesting in Burgundy, France. This article is the follow-up to Becoming Vendangers: Good Hard Fun (Part 1).

1. Where we were

Lou and I were three days into our stint of Grape Harvesting. We had swapped the intimacy of our campervan lifestyle for single beds in a mixed dormitory. Around 75 people sleep, eat and party in our Maison. Most hailed from either France or Spain. Lou and I were the only Vendangers, (Graper Harvesters) that were English. Fortunately, a good number of English speakers existed in the group. We were based on the ‘Route des Grand Crus’ which carves a path from Dijon, southwards through some of the world’s most prestigious vineyards.

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2. Before we began

Lou and I were a little apprehensive about how we would cope with the physical nature of grape harvesting. Because we arrived at the Maison several days before work began, we had the opportunity to seek reassurance. We both worried we might let the team down. Especially Lou, who has a bad back. As we sat around the dinner table, our new friend, Juan Carlos, otherwise known as Juanca, proffered us these words of comfort:

“The first three days grape harvesting are the worst. It’s normal for your back to hurt. Everyone will feel the same.”

His words resonated. We now understood it was OK to be in pain because we would all be in pain together. Because we were all grape harvesting.

3. Training day

On Monday 5 September 2017, 11:30 am, Ursula, who was now our defacto translator, informed us we would have lunch in one hour. After that, we would harvest grapes for the rest of the day. Our hearts skipped a beat. This was stupid. We knew if we started sooner, we would be finished sooner. At least they were easing us into the job with just a few hours of work, rather than the expected eight hours daily.

We donned kneepads and some long-sleeved cotton t-shirts we had brought with us. We had little concern for our appearance and we were more worried about stinging insects. Thankfully, the day was warm and sunny. Lou had her Thai farmers hat decorated in psychedelic military camouflage and I had my rather bland fishing hat to defend my diametrically expanding bald spot. Of course, these clothes were unnecessary to eat lunch with. We were just a little tense.

Lou and I entered the mess hall by the front doors and we noticed a lot of new faces had suddenly appeared. Most of them were Spanish. They had either tanned skin, dreadlocks, partly shaved heads or lots of piercings or a combination of all of the above. We were transported to a ‘Psytrance’ festival, mentally, if not physically. Later on, we discovered the Spanish were staying in a second ‘Maison’ down the road in Chorey-Les-Beaune.

4. To the vineyards

Despite eating a four-course lunch, there was still room for butterflies in our tummies. Jerome, the slightly mad French guy took the edge off by blowing raspberries at me. Presumably, he was referring to the loud fart I’d done that morning. Fair play. He then proceeded to bluntly criticise the quality of Ursula’s French despite the fact he couldn’t even speak her native language, Spanish. Jerome was an amusing character. He grew on us like a fungus.

After half an hour everybody was ushered into the waiting vans. Lou and I were are a bit confused as all the instructions were in French. We ended up in the back of a much smaller van with two older, experienced looking people. We weren’t quite sure of their roles but we assumed they were senior grape harvesters. Being separated from the group was slightly annoying for us because we felt this might have been a good opportunity to bond with the new arrivals.

We had no idea where we would be going or how long the journey would take but it was only a ten-minute drive into the hills of Pernand-Vergelesses. Clambering out of our shabby white van, we were expecting to receive some kind of instruction on how to cut the grapes. Little did we know, our training was to be, ‘on the job’. All we were given was a pair of secateurs and a bucket.

5. How Grape Harvesting in Burgundy worked

Lou and I were Coupeurs (Cutters). We used secateurs to remove whole bunches of grapes from the vines. When our buckets were full of grapes we gave them to a Porteur (Porter). The Porteurs, who tended to be physically well-built guys, would empty our bucket into a crate. Then they returned an empty bucket to us so we could fill it again.

The Porteurs were positioned three, four or five rows apart depending on the number of rows that needed harvesting. Each Porteur had a barrow that held three crates. Each crate weighed 16kg when full. They wheeled the full crates to the end of the row where they were put into the back of a refrigerated lorry, ready to go to the winemaking facility.

We were pleasantly surprised by the lack of highly mobile stinging insects. The only creepy-crawlies we encountered hiding in the vines were the occasional daddy long-legs and some rather fat earwigs.

6. Our first vines

Ahead of us lay row-upon-row of Chardonnay vines, trained along steel wires that stretched a hundred meters or so into the distance. We were at the top of a hill but nerves meant there was little time to take in the scenery. Fred, the boss and Marie, the little blonde lady we had met on our arrival, lined everyone up at the start of a row. Looking at the others, we understood to cut the vines to our left.

The first thing we noticed about Chardonnay vines is that it’s quite difficult to see the grapes for the leaves. The grapes and the foliage share a greeny-yellow hue. With our buckets ahead of us we crouched down to reach the bunches of grapes. Most of the grapes hung only a foot or two off the ground but they were heavily obscured. How does the saying go? “The ripest fruit hangs lowest.” Low is also the least comfortable place to for us to reach.

After only five minutes we felt the lactic acid building in our thighs. Lou and I switched to a kneeling stance. With our left hands we reached into the foliage to find the grapes and with our right hands, we used the secateurs to snip them from the vine. “CLACK, CLACK, CLACK CLACK, CLACK” was the cry from the other Vendangers. The others were encouraging us to work quickly. French and Spanish chitter-chatter filled the air. Lou and I were the only people not talking. We’re concentrating on keeping up with the rest of the team.

7. Our first mistakes

After fifteen minutes we had harvested the first ten meters of grapes. Lou and I seemed to be further back than the others, although it was hard to tell with everyone crouched behind a four-foot wall of foliage. Fred, the boss of the operation came round to inspect the quality of our cutting. He pulled Lou back for missing a number of bunches amongst the leaves.

Next, it was my turn to be criticised. Fred picked a bunch I had missed and exclaimed, “Un Bouteille!” – A bottle. He was suggesting I cost the company a bottle of wine with each bunch I missed. Not true. It takes five bunches of grapes to make a bottle of wine. I didn’t argue. Using snapped off twigs, he gestured I should prop my eyes open. Trés dróle Fred. Trés dróle.

Our error was not stripping away the leaves when we were looking for grapes. Rookie mistake. The leaves had done their job, harvesting energy from the suns’ rays to make the grapes grow. They were now expandable pawns in our battle with the vines. Removing the foliage before cutting the grapes made a lot more sense. It should also have made the task a little safer.

8. Injury time

I was the first person to get injured. Having gripped a bunch of grapes with my left hand to ensure it didn’t fall on the floor, I couldn’t find the wood where it adjoined the branch. A common problem because the grapes grow in between the steel training wires. With the secateurs in my right hand, I snipped what I thought would be wood. It turned out to be the tip of my little finger.

With blood pouring from my pinkie, I needed first aid. Spotting Fred at the end of my row I halfheartedly shouted his name, not wanting to draw attention to my stupidity. Fred’s suggestion was to suck it. Very helpful! I held up my finger. The bright red liquid was dripping into my bucket of grapes. Fred shouted for Natalie.

Natalie was the older lady who had been driving our little van. She was in charge of the first aid kit. It took several minutes to stem the flow, my blood pressure pumped up by the physical nature of our work. Eventually, the plaster stuck and I returned to my row, now lagging woefully behind the other Coupeurs.

9. Bernard

In part one of this story, we talked about Bernard, the General Director of Remoissenet. I was pleasantly surprised when I saw him ambling down my particular row of vines, dressed in slacks and blue suede shoes. I almost didn’t recognise him at first. Perhaps he had lost weight.

I introduced Bernard to Lou. He said he was impressed by our desire to undertake the challenge of grape harvesting. He also mentioned it was possible to take part in the sorting of the grapes. We presumed sorting was less strenuous than cutting. After just half an hour of this tortuous labour, a little part of us wanted to exercise the apparent get-out clause. No. That would be lame.

Lou expressed her concern to Bernard, saying her back might give-out at some point. Bernard offered Lou a piece of advice that proved invaluable. He said, “The best way to protect your back whilst Grape Harvesting is to sit on your bucket.” We didn’t see anyone else doing this but if it was good enough for the General Director it was good enough for us!

10. Positional technique

Fred chastised us for using knee pads. He said that kneeling in front of the vines was bad for our backs because of the twisting motion. His advice was to adopt a kind of warrior pose (to borrow a term from Yoga), with the right knee over the right ankle and the left leg stretched out behind us. This proved to be just as tiring as squatting. We both wished we had done more Yoga in the lead up to Grape Harvesting.

We adopted a mixture of the ‘Fred-nique’ described above, squatting directly opposite the vine and kneeling on our beloved pads. Lou also sat on her bucket. However, this was only possible when they weren’t cracked. The best way to stave off the pain was to cycle through the different positions.

It took more than an hour to complete the hundred meter row of vines. Then, Natalie handed out bottles of water. We perspired buckets in the heat of the sun, so this ‘reward’ was very welcome. Refreshed, the team bundled back into the vans. It felt so nice sitting up dead straight against the hard plastic seats.

11. Red grapes

Remoissenet owns different vines in each village of Burgundy. These are known as parcels and range from five rows to thirty, of varying lengths. We arrived in Savigny-Les-Beaune, a well reputed but less prestigious area. A bottle in the UK will set you back £20 at least. Here, the grapes are mostly Pinot Noir, the other dominant variety in Burgundy along with Chardonnay.

Pinot noir grapes on the vine appear purple and velvety. The first thing that struck us was how small they were, compared to grapes you see in a supermarket. This is because they contain less water. Wine producers want their grapes to be as concentrated with sugars as possible because this is what will ferment into alcohol. Grapes too fattened by water would be rejected. Hence their diminutive size.

12. Harvesting Pinot Noir

With Pinot Noir vines it’s easier to spot the purple grapes against the surrounding green foliage. Because they were making red wine, we were meant to cut out any bits of the grape bunches that look bad and leave them on the ground. It’s important the skins are in good condition because this is where the colour and flavour of the wine come are from. Any green (underripe) or hardened (overripe) grapes had to be stripped out.

Many grapes were shrivelled or looked mouldy in some way. I tossed away bunches of grapes, as I saw others doing, until Pascal, one of the ‘Porteurs’, grabbed a bunch I had tossed on the ground and bit into it like a grizzly bear. Taking my cue, I did the same. Pascal looked at me quizzically. He said, “It tastes good right? Then put it in the bucket!” Do not be afraid to eat the grapes.

These shrivelled grapes, two wrinkles short of a California Raisin, had an intensely sweet flavour, like kirsch and molasses. So, the look of the grapes was less important than we thought. However, as many as half of the bunches were mouldy in the middle. Sometimes, slashing into them with secateurs released clouds of spores. Lou was convinced this was the reason she spent almost the entire time suffering from a blocked or runny nose.

13. Sleeping and waking

After the first afternoon, our days followed broadly the same pattern. We set our alarms for 6:30 am. Lou woke up a little earlier. I frequently slept through the alarm and was awoken by the scrambling and scurrying of the eight other males and females, living in close proximity.

Our three-bed enclave became a four-bed whilst we were out. We were joined by two middle-aged guys, one of which snored constantly. Thankfully we had the foresight to bring earplugs and eye masks. Without these, it would have been impossible to get a decent sleep

Unfortunately, there was little or no ventilation in our dormitory so it became hot and moist in the night. Our repeated evening drinks with the crew meant sleep was usually disturbed by the call of nature. We might have been better off in our campervan. However, we enjoyed the comfort of the beds, the proximity to the kitchen, shower and of course the sociability.

14. First Breakfast

Our 7.30am start was proceeded only by a round of coffee so Lou kindly made us both a cheese and ham croissant every morning. There were approximately seven percolators available to the rabble. Invariably these were empty and slow to refill. People were left without their cuppa. After a few days, the management brought in a massive tea urn, full of coffee. Everyone was happy.

15. Morning shift

On the first full day, we were split into two teams of around thirty people. These teams remained the same throughout the Vendange. Every day at 7:30 am Fred or Marie, the respective team leaders, commanded us all to get into our vans. Horns were honked loudly.

The fleet of vans, mostly Renault people carriers, had their seats wrapped in heavy duty clingfilm and their floors lined with cardboard. Mud was obviously expected. Presumably, they were rental vehicles. The funny thing was, anyone was allowed to drive. In France, it is the vehicle which is insured rather than the person.

For a week or so we rode in the van where Pierre, the Gallic-looking Screech, (see part one), was in charge of the music. His selections were hit and miss. Sometimes we would be treated to classic rock, sometimes jazz. Very little electronica. So, we started to ride with Loic, Kalina and Gaitan, the dreadlocked Porteur from Limoges. This was the rave van!

16. Arrival in the vineyard

The central location of the Maison meant it was rarely more than a ten-minute drive to the vineyards. Only Gevrey-Chambertin and Pommard were a bit further away. We jumped out of our vans and took buckets and secateurs from Natalie’s utility van. Some of the secateurs were in better shape than others so eventually, people stopped giving them back when they found a good pair. Lou and I cottoned on to this phenomena quickly and nabbed some good ones.

Bertrand and Marco were always waiting for us at the vineyard. Each morning they shook hands with us. This simple morning ritual helped us develop an understanding that transcended the language barrier. Bertrand, a sullen looking guy in his thirties, was nearly always dressed in black. His role was to help the Coupeurs cut and direct them to the correct vines.

Marco, probably in his late 20s liked to dress in blue overalls and a trucker’s cap. He looked like a farm worker from the USA. The grapes we were harvesting belonged to him and his father Gerard. They sold their grapes to Remoissenet as well as making their own wine under the name Maillard.

17. The first few hours

We started grape harvesting with the sun yet to fully rise. French and Spanish banter filled the air. A group of Spanish girls were constantly cackling about something but they were kind enough to speak English to us when there was an opportunity. Marie and Natalie shouted, “Allez Allez” (Come on) and “CLACK, CLACK, CLACK, CLACK” was parroted like an echo by the more experienced Coupeurs.

We ripped the leaves away from the vine as fast as we could to identify the bunches. Inevitably our secateurs would slash through the delicate skins causing the grapes to bleed their sticky juice all over our hands. We brought gloves with us but we found them more of a hindrance because they made it harder to feel where the grapes were. Dew, still clinging to the leaves helped to cleanse our skin.

Returning to work in this stooped manner each morning, re-ignited pain in the base of our spines. As the day wore on the pain would increase. Not only in our spines but the tops of our thighs and our hamstrings. The first few hours were always the easiest and we still had breakfast to look forward to.

18. French breakfast

Breakfast was at 9:30 am each day. What the French call Casse-Croute (literally snack break), was more like a full meal. A buffet consisting of chunks of cheese – Comté, Morbier or Brie on rotation; Big slices of paté-en-croute, similar to an English pork pie but in a loaf shape and of course, the ubiquitous French stick.

To drink, we had six bottles of wine to share between us. Of course, it was basic ‘Bourgogne Rouge’ and ‘Bourgogne Blanc’ but given these costs a tenner or so in the UK, we could hardly complain. Pierre was always first on the scene, opening bottles with glee, while the rest of us took plastic cups and waited for him to fill them up.

On the first day, Marie told us we were told to have only one cup of wine; one slice of cheese and one slice of paté. However, following Pierre’s lead, Lou and I managed to drink up to three cups of wine in every Casse-Croute. I started doubling up on cheese portions too. After all, the calories were flying off.

19. The in-between time

Marie and Natalie would call time on our mini-drinking sessions after twenty-five minutes. The next two hours would probably have been the most grinding had it not been for the wine.

The mindless, repetitive action of cutting bunch after bunch of grapes was barely alleviated by our alcoholic sustenance. Once again shouts “CLACK, CLACK, CLACK, CLACK, CLACK” filled the air as if to remind us we were in some kind of hellish nightmare. The sound became indelibly etched into our brains.

With everybody working at different speeds and some vines more fruitful than others, this caused everybody to spread out. To look down from above would have been to witness a kind of snail race. It was apt then, that each year there is a prize given for both the fastest Coupeur and the slowest Coupeur – known as The Golden Snail.

20. Eyes on the prize

After learning from Loic and Kalina about The Golden Snail award for slowest Coupeur, I’m not ashamed to say my goal was to win this. Most people aim to be the fastest, but I believe it’s important to set realistic goals. On day four or five I was first singled out by Natalie for being slow. I was then subjected to repeated shouts of, “Allez Antho! Allez!” So I knew the prize was in sight.

I don’t think I was going more slowly than anyone else really. The upshot of finishing your row was that you had to go and help someone finish their row, starting from the opposite end. The best thing about this was that you could tell when the shift was nearly over because everyone became bunched up in the middle of the rows. All the shouting and bantering in different languages generated a positively charged atmosphere.

21. Lunchtime

We returned to the Maison and sat at the long tables in the mess hall. Each day the food was different. We had Salad or French onion soup as a starter. For mains, we had regional classics like Tartiflette, Boeuf Bourguignon or Ox tongue. Vegans and Vegetarians had their own food cooked for them. We tended to skip the sweet and get stuck into the cheese. Lou and I were disappointed to only have one bottle of wine for each table. As was Pierre.

We rested on our beds as we desperately tried to recharge our batteries for yet another gruelling afternoon in the trenches. Eventually, the need to lie down at lunchtime became less urgent. Presumably, we were getting fitter. Our break ended at about 2:30 pm. The vans took us to different parcels, where we would do battle for the fruits, once again.

Lying down was dangerous because you could never be sure exactly when everybody was leaving. The only warning we got was the sound of people honking horns. Occasionally we were faced with a mad scramble to get our muddy boots back on and haul our arses to the van. Lou was caught out on one occasion and got left behind. This meant she didn’t get paid for the shift.

22. Afternoon

Afternoons felt much more trying than mornings even though they were shorter. The main reason for this was the lack of wine. Also, an overload of carbs inevitably resulted in slow-down. Both Lou and I had afternoon acid reflux and resorted to Gaviscon indigestion tablets. After several days we learned to cut down on our lunch portions.

With the sun out, the grapes no longer glistened. Instead, they appeared dry, covered in a fine powder of mould. This powder was also found on many of the leaves. Mildew. The mould made our throats dry as we sifted through the greenery. We learned to crush the sugarless, immature grapes between our fingers, using the water inside as a cleanser for our sticky fingers.

The greatest pleasure in any day was to put our hands under the trickle of water that flowed from the water barrels. Cleaning off the stickiness was a revelation. Although, our fingers were still black. Mud had worked it’s way so deep under our fingernails, no amount of showering would get rid of it.

23. Time for Apero!

Apero is to the French what teatime is to the English. At the end of each day in the vineyards, before we drove home, Marco and Gerard would get three bottles of chilled white and three bottles of red out. Rather than just bog standard Bourgogne, these would be better quality, ‘Village’ level wines or occasionally even ‘Premier Cru’.

After apero, everyone was in a good mood, no matter how much they ached. It felt like we were getting what we deserved. The fruits of our labours, almost literally. The wine was an aperitif that enlivened our jubilation at having put the days work behind us.

Coupled with the joy of having finished, this made the journey back home all the more fun. It was usual to honk our horns and wave at other Vendangers harvesting grapes for different Domaines. We would bounce up and down to ‘psytrance’ and by the time we got back to the Maison, we were ready to have our own little rave in the setting sun.

24. Evening socialising

People constantly had a beer in their hand. That was unless we shared our wine with them! A few people regularly drank and played music until 1 am. Usually, we crashed by 10 pm, showing our age!

One evening a group from the other team returned from a trip to the supermarket wearing fancy dress and face paints. They had passed a car boot sale (‘Vide Grenier’ in French), on the way back. They even brought Nerf guns along too. (Kids toys that shoot foam bullets).

At the same time, one of the Spanish crew decided to take one of the rental vans to the supermarket. It just so happened that the American owner of Remoissenet had driven into the car park, and this guy successfully swiped the wing of his 4×4 on the way out.

With Fred checking out the damage, Marie, our hard drinking ‘team leader’, was doing her best James Bond impression, trying to assassinate Fred (her boss), with the Nerf gun from behind his own car, whilst he assessed the damage to his boss’ car. Fun definitely triumphed over respect for authority!

One evening, I agreed with Kalina that I would get a tattoo of a toilet to match Lou’s Ant tattoo. Ant and Loo! This has not yet come to pass but it’s in the (water) works.

25. Three days in

Fatigue started to take hold. Ursula, our friend from Malaga was able to speak some good English to us in the days before work began. Now, she stared at us blankly unable to connect her brain with her mouth. I tried to rekindle my rusty Spanish but found the barrier of tiredness to be insurmountable.

Juanca told us how his team had been harvesting in a very steep vineyard that day. As a Porteur, he had been unable to use the barrow and had been carrying the 16kg crates on his shoulder up and down the rows. Working in steep vineyards did not sound like fun. We were about to experience it for ourselves.

26. Rain, rain. Go away!

On day four the skies darkened and fat droplets of water descended on us as we worked. I had my waterproof jacket on but I’d removed the fleecy lining expecting sunshine. The more soaked I was the colder I became. Lou had some really snazzy waterproofs that kept her dry-as-a-bone. Even my balls were cold.

We both had one common problem, however. Mud. The sticky soil clagged up on our walking boots, making them ten times heavier. We were all slow now. It was a good thing we were on flat ground because the rockier parts of topsoil were now increasingly slippery. This was bordering on hell.

We learned that the best way to move mud from your boots was to scrape them on the steel wires pegged to the ground. Thankfully, like most rain in Burgundy, it was very localised. This was the only time we had significant rainfall while we worked. We were incredibly lucky in this respect. If you’ve ever been to a muddy Glastonbury festival compared to a sunny one, you’ll know what we mean.

27. The hills have eyes

That day I skipped lunch in favour of getting warm under a duvet. We returned to work under brighter skies. Now, we stood at the foot of a one in four gradient at the top of a hill overlooking Pernand-Vergelesses. The best grapes come from vineyards on steep hillsides because the vines receive more sun and absorb more nutrients through their roots. Knowing this made our grape harvesting a little less daunting.

Our bucket frequently tipped over causing the grapes to spill out onto the pebble-filled sludge. The Porteurs, unable to use their barrows, left their crates in the rows. This meant we had to deposit the grapes ourselves. Lou managed to kick an unattended crate, half-full, which then tobogganed down the hill. Thankfully no one was in the way. The angle we were at, placed even greater strain on our hamstrings, calves and Achilles.

We took well over an hour to complete a hundred meters up-hill climb. When we reached the end of our rows, a spectacular landscape was revealed to us. This magnified the end-of-day jubilation and everyone took a moment to get photos taken such was the beauty of our surroundings.

28. Day of the black contract

Now fully into the rhythm of the daily grind, Lou and I hoped something would come along to break it up. Our prayers were answered one morning when Fred told us to join Loic, Kalina, Paulo and a few others at a vineyard belonging to a different Domaine. The place we harvested was only a minute’s drive from the Maison, right next to the main road.

We arrived at this other vineyard – literally the back garden of a medium sized detached cottage and completed harvesting the vines in only a couple of hours. Then, we returned to the gazebo for an almighty casse-croute. The food was of a much higher quality than our normal fare. We had a huge spread of paté and cheese laid out in front of us.

The owner, a smiley, grey-haired chap, could not have been happier to let us drink his wine. Upon opening each bottle he would accompany it with a speech about Burgundy soil-types and how great the wine was. We were only paid 20EUR in cash but as is usual in the drinks industry, this was supplemented by getting us very drunk.

29. Sent to sorting

Aside from the Coupeurs and the Portuers, the other necessary job was to sort the grapes. One afternoon, Lou and I were sent to ‘Trie’ along with some of the Spanish / Catalan crew. Lou asked why and apparently it was because Fred had been checking on us and felt we were the slowest. Ah ha! It looked like I might be on for that Golden Snail award!

Sorting took place at the facility in Chorey-lés-Beaune. Here they had around fifty huge steel vats that each held 5000 litres of liquid. This is where the juices were fermented to make the wine. The sorting itself took place on a conveyor belt in the middle of this industrial warehouse.

When the crates arrived from the vineyards they were tipped one-by-one onto the belt. Six of us had to dispose of any grapes that were ‘immature’. We were told that if there was even one grape in the bunch not fully ripened then we had to throw the whole bunch in the bin. We disposed of a whole mountain of otherwise decent looking grapes. Apparently, the ‘bad’ grapes get used in animal feed.

I felt confident enough that I could put my headphones on and zone out. Listening to music was a godsend in Trie, where the scenery never changed. I kept one ear in and the other listening to Rebecca and a couple of other Catalans. Rebecca wanted to improve her English so we practised together. I asked her why she did not do this job in Spain, where it was probably warmer. She explained that in Spain they pay only 3 EUR per hour and employ mostly illegal immigrants. I’m not sure if this is true but it sounds bad.

Chatting to the guys as we worked was a big boost to my Spanish. Even so, working here lacked the charm of the vineyards so Lou and I were happy not to be sent back to the sorting room.

30. Give us a break

When Lou and I had first arrived, the others suggested to us we might work through the weekends without stopping. We took it with a pinch of salt. After the tenth consecutive day of work, we had long since eaten the pinch of salt. Everything hurt. I remember Ursula leaning against the door frame, looking forlornly at me, shaking her head in disbelief, as if shell-shocked. We heard that one of the Porteurs in the other team had dislocated his shoulder.

Ursula’s deadlocked boyfriend, Raphael, also from Malaga was a super chilled-out dude. He was also in the third year of training to become a professional masseuse. Apparently, he supplemented his wages from labouring by giving massages to tourists on the beach back in the sunny South of Spain. He had brought with him a folding massage table and still had the energy to give one or two of us an hour-long rub down in the evenings. This was much needed.

So, it was a pleasant surprise when we arrived back at the Maison to be told by the others that we would be having the following day off. It is illegal in France to work for more than ten days consecutively. We were, at last, going to get a lie in.

31. The end of days

We returned to work on the second Friday, barely refreshed. Lou and I were running purely on adrenaline. Our time in the vineyards was increasingly painful as the end of our epic job approached. We guesstimated there were probably five days of this hell left. A Poil! A Poil! Came the shouts from the more experienced Vendangers. Translated to English it means, get naked! A reference to the madness expected when the task was complete.

Natalie cracked the whip. The whole Allez Allez thing was really starting to grate. In an effort to go faster, Lou and I both spent more time bent double, rather than kneeling. Both of our backs felt bruised. Then, disaster struck. After a particularly challenging vineyard where the rows seemed like they were 250m long, Lou’s disc bulge flared up.

Lou felt the discs in her back had compressed and she could neither stand up straight nor bend over without being in agony. She had a three-hour massage from Raphael. I waited tensely to see if this could sustain Lou for the remaining few days. Immediately after the massage, Lou said she felt great and it was totally fine. Unfortunately, when she tried to get up the next morning she was in agony again. After 11 days working eight hours per day, Lou was finished.

32. So close

I saw the next day through hoping we would be harvesting our last vineyard. It wasn’t to be. They don’t tell you when you will finish because the speed at which you work can be affected by adverse weather conditions. This was frustrating. Lou felt bad because she was taking a bed and not working while there were people camped in tents outside.

Sunday came and I was in a particularly bad mood. We knew there were only a couple more days to go but I felt I was abandoning Lou, who was in desperate need of a hot bath to soothe her muscles. This made our position in the Maison untenable. I informed Marie that we would not be able to work any longer. We packed our bags and headed for the cheapest hotel in Beaune that had a bath.

Although disappointed at this failure we did not say goodbye because we knew we would be back for the end of Vendange party. We swapped numbers with Ursula and told her to call us when they had picked the last grape. Thankfully we only had to wait until Tuesday for her call. So, technically I had only missed two full days, and Lou three. We had come so close!

33. What we could have won

What did we miss? Well, the final vineyard is a closely guarded secret until you are there. When the last grape is picked, the shout goes up from Fred and then everybody starts lobbing mud and grapes at each other. This is a yearly tradition and it is when the grape harvesters finally become at one with the land. Lou and I were at one with the land after about day five.

We were shown videos of the crew stopping traffic in the middle of the road and mooning them, such was their elation at the end of fourteen full days of hard yakka. Lou and I were gutted we missed this. It was a real shame. We had to console ourselves with the end of harvest party.

34. What we did win

Within half an hour the intrepid Vendangers returned with an almost literal truck full of wine and they weren’t holding back on the good stuff. They had been to the main wine production facility in Beaune to pick up their paychecks and do a wine tasting. I’d already tasted most of the Remoissenet wines in my old job so I was only slightly put out by this.

We started with Kir (white Bourgogne with Creme de Cassis, black currant liqueur) before we sat down to a huge meal. Everyone was here, even the guys from the winemaking facility. Then there was a lengthy prize giving. Fred, with a very red face, had the job of handing out the prizes. Everyone seemed to win a prize for something.

Guess what? Lou and I claimed our prize of two Golden Snails! We also won another prize just for being English. So, we received two bottles of Premier Cru Beaune Rouge, as well as the ubiquitous Vendanges 2017 T-shirts.

Gaitan was giving out shots of rum and there was music, dancing and lots of drunken chat. I managed to video myself falling asleep on the toilet. Somehow, by the time we were ready for bed, it was six in the morning. Our final prize was the most almighty hangover.

35. Was it worth it?

We were paid by bank transfer. Between us, we earned approximately 1400 EUR. Predictably, our wages were taxed at source. French income tax was 19.5% according to our payslips. We would have earned another 300 EUR or thereabouts, had we completed all the days.

Grape Harvesting did not make us cash rich, but as Pascal said, “You don’t do this job for the money. You do it for the people.” And what an amazing bunch they were! Those who lived in vans continued to travel in convoy, seeking out work in other industries. Some went on to do the Vendange in Bordeaux which starts when Burgundy finishes.

Lou and I felt incredibly bonded to these people by our experience together. One month on and there was an active Facebook group where we share our photos. We fully expect to see these guys again. Grape harvesting is the perfect job if you live in a campervan and you happen to be in France.

36. Would we go back?

Despite the pain that grape harvesting in Burgundy caused us, time is a great healer, If our travel and work plans allow then we will gladly come back to this particular Maison because we know many of the characters will be returning. The people are what made this job great!

37. So you want to do Grape Harvesting too?

Decide which region you want to work in. Your best bets are Burgundy, Bordeaux, Champagne or Alsace.

Buy a bottle from your chosen region in a local shop, (Or just look at the label if you’re tight).

Email the Domaine that produced the wine. Use Google Translate if necessary.

Tell them you want to take part in the Vendange as a Coupeur.

Or, just Google French job sites around June or July. Remember, the keyword is Vendange.

Alternatively, go to an employment agency in a nearby town. We saw lots of jobs advertised days before the Vendange was due to start.

***

Thanks for reading ‘Grape Harvesting in Burgundy – Good Hard Fun (Part 2)’. We hope you enjoyed it and we’d love to hear from you so please feel free to email us on antlou [at] vanutopia.com And don’t forget you can stay right up to date with all of our antics by following us on social media: Facebook; Instagram; Twitter and subscribing to our YouTube channel.

]]>http://vanutopia.com/our-adventure/grape-harvesting-burgundy-part-2/feed/2Becoming Vendangers – Good Hard Fun (Part 1)http://vanutopia.com/our-adventure/becoming-vendangers-good-hard-fun-part-1/
http://vanutopia.com/our-adventure/becoming-vendangers-good-hard-fun-part-1/#commentsThu, 05 Oct 2017 20:54:35 +0000http://vanutopia.com/?p=4923Lou and I are on a mission to experience authentic French culture as we travel the country in our little campervan. This is the first instalment in the tale of how we took a hard working holiday from ‘hashtag vanlife’ to help make some of the world’s most prestigious wine – A story of blood, …

]]>Lou and I are on a mission to experience authentic French culture as we travel the country in our little campervan. This is the first instalment in the tale of how we took a hard working holiday from ‘hashtag vanlife’ to help make some of the world’s most prestigious wine – A story of blood, sweat and Burgundy. Read on to find out the what; the how and the why of becoming Vendangers.

The beginning

No one dreams of doing hard, repetetive labour out in the fields do they? Or maybe you do if the fruits of those labours are your own? Like you, we’d never exactly dreamt of becoming Vendangers. We didn’t even know what a Vendanger was during our first few months in France. Despite this, of all the things Lou and I wanted to experience in France, becoming Vendangers ranked near the top. We wanted an authentic French experience and we needed to earn some money. So, becoming Vendangers in the heart of the world’s top producing wine country, fitted the bill perfectly.

In my former job as curator of a fine wine merchant I encountered a chance meeting with a dapper, middle-aged Frenchman. Bernard was the representative of a medium-sized Burgundy producer, there to taste some of his new wines with the staff. He was a friendly fellow and left me a half-bottle of 1967 vintage Gevrey-Chambertin from his own cellars. That’s some very expensive wine!

Having already planned our escape from the daily grind of London life, I knew my wife Lou and I would be travelling around France in our campervan the following year. With a planned career as a freelance writer in its fledgling stages and no regular income to support us, we were likely to be skint. I enquired with Bernard if his Domaine might have any temporary work available. He told me they always need workers for the annual harvest. He gave me his business card and I took a photo of us together for the shop’s Instagram feed. Thus, the seed was sewn for us to become Vendangers.

People that give you free wine are wonderful!

What is a Vendanger?

A ‘Vendange’ (noun) is a grape harvest. Specifically a grape harvest in France. A Vendanger therefore, is someone who harvests grapes used to make wine. The Vendanges (plural), in Burgundy usually take place at the end of August and start of September. The harvest lasts for several weeks, but the exact date and length is dependant on the weather, how much the grapes have ripened and of course, how hard the Vendangers work.

What were our aims in becoming Vendangers?

France is the top wine exporting country in the world (Source: WTEx) and its 800,000 hectares of vineyards provide temporary employment for over half a million people (Source: France Diplomatie). It is also arguably the most famous wine producing country on the planet. So, becoming Vendangers – harvesting grapes such as Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and the other varieties that make up the myriad French wines consumed the world over, seemed like the perfect way to get hands-on involvement in an industry at the very core of French society.

Our second aim in becoming Vendangers was a necessary evil: Earn some money. We exist on a very limited budget and any income we can generate as we travel can provide a welcome antidote to the toil of living in a small van. Extra cash means we can do things like eat out, replace worn out clothing and carry out minor repairs.

We also hoped becoming Vendangers would provide a chance for us to sleep in a place other than our cosy, but ultimately cramped, van. The ‘rock-and-roll’ folding bed in Heidi is a sufficient, but less than ideal surface on which to rest tired bones. Maybe this was wishful thinking but we always imagined that becoming a Vendanger would mean we were given a place to sleep. A perk of the job as it were. Sooner or later, we’d find out.

More personally, although Lou is pretty much sorted for a ‘fall-back’ money earner (she loved her job as a private carer), I have to think about what I’m going to do for work if the travel blogging thing isn’t successful. Some people might consider that preparing to fail but I prefer to call it common sense. Augmenting my experience of the wine industry alongside indulging my passion for writing could hardly hurt. To be multi-skilled is the way forward.

What we never considered before embarking on this adventure was where it would lead us socially. We’ve been practically alone together for so long on our travels. a few months seems like an eternity. It’s OK because Lou and I are together but travelling in a camper rather than by mass transit isolates you from other people. Especially in a country where you don’t speak the language. So, before becoming Vendangers it never occurred to us that we might make friends who would teach us new things, alter the course of our travels and entertain us in ways we would never forget.

Why did we choose Burgundy?

We had considered other options for becoming Vendangers, such as another stint WWOOFing at a place in the Alsace. Of course, you don’t get paid for WWOOFing, so this would have negated one of our reasons for undertaking the work. Becoming Vendangers in Burgundy came about largely because of my chance meeting with Bernard. He’s General Director of Remoissenet, an ‘old-school’ Burgundy wine producer now rejuvenated under American ownership. Bernard was our ‘in’.

Being honest, we weren’t sure if it would come to pass. Our carefully budgeted monthly allowance and petrol-thirsty campervan mean we’re restricted in how far we can travel in a given time period. But, after a couple of months on the road Lou and I had a fix on what distance we could cover in the remaining weeks before harvest time. Happily, Burgundy (or Bourgogne as the French call it), was within touching distance. Around the middle of July 2017 we emailed Bernard, out of the blue, jogging his memory with that Instagram photo. Thankfully he recognised me and kindly put Lou and I in touch with the ‘Agro-Viticole’ department of Remoissenet. We were good to go!

Our friend’s advice? “Don’t do it!” Our foremost expectation: Pain!

Possibly the most prescient reason to harvest grapes in Burgundy is without doubt the prestige of the region. A map of Bourgogne, reads like a who’s who of famous wines. From Pommard to Puligny-Montrachet (mentioned in Hitchcock’s ‘Rear Window’). Everyone’s heard of Chablis right? Chablis is a sub-region of Bourgogne, famed for it’s crisp, elegant white wine. Even if people don’t like chardonnay, they probably like Chablis.

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Let’s put it this way – If you had to spend three weeks crawling around in the muddy aisles of a vineyard, you’d want it to be the for the good stuff right? Not the five dollar a bottle supermarket wine (Admittedly much of which is harvested by machine). No. Burgundy is the real deal. Wine people will cellar for years. Even if Lou and I won’t be having children, maybe a molecule of us will live on in one of these bottles of Burgundy. Maybe this can be our legacy.

Our expectations

If we learned anything from our WWOOFing experience it was; do your homework. Apart from the obvious – it involved picking lots of grapes, we knew nothing about becoming Vendangers. We emailed copies of our passports, as requested, to Agro-Viticole with a load of questions:

When would the work start?

When would the work finish?

How many hours per day would we be working?

Would meals be included?

What did we need to bring with us?

Where would we be based?

What were the sleeping arrangements?

Would we be paid hourly or by weight of grapes?

Finally, in the last week of August we received an email in French from a man called Fred. Relying on Google Translate, all it said was that harvest would start on the 5th or 6th September and we had to be at a specific address in a village called Corgoloin a few days earlier where there would be beds for us. A few questions answered at least. We were particularly happy to hear about the beds. I couldn’t help be slightly disappointed that Corgoloin wasn’t a place synonymous with wine but at least it was just South of the well known Nuits Saint Georges.

From talking to the producers when we were in Champagne about how they conducted harvests, we were aware our days were likely to start very early but hopefully include a number of meals. However, we couldn’t be certain they did things the same way in Bourgogne and with over three thousand ‘Domaines’ each harvesting their own vineyards, surely they would differ in their approaches?

Reading various blogs about grape harvesting only added to our sense that this was a leap into the unknown. The most frequently used phrase to describe becoming Vendangers was, ‘back-breaking’. This sounded unpleasant for me and very worrying for Lou who has a ‘disk bulge’ in her spine that flares up occasionally with heavy lifting and is an almost constant source of ache. Our friend’s advice? “Don’t do it!” Our foremost expectation: Pain!

The other thing WWOOFing had taught us, is that spending long periods of time on your knees is rather painful. A quick trip to Intersport, a large chain of sports shops in France, and we each purchased a pair of kneepads, or genouilléres as they’re called out here. We had read that such ‘aides’ would be frowned upon. Our attitude was, “Turn that frown upside down!” We knew our days would be long; We would be exceptionally tired.

I look like an extra from Rollerball

We had seen with our own eyes in the vineyards of Alsace the proliferation of hornets suckling the sweet sugary nectar that hung from the vines. All the blogs warned of the likelihood of being stung. Flying, stinging insects are a pet hate of mine. I’m that guy in the beer garden smashing glasses with flailing arms as he attempts to avoid the agile army of wasps that invade every British summertime. Lou is somewhat less concerned about the insect factor of, her extra life experience meaning she knows how to deal with little pricks.

As for money, we weren’t so concerned about what we were paid, as long as we got paid. In 2017 the French minimum wage was 9.76EUR per hour. In UK terms £9.50. This is more than £2 per hour above the pitiful UK minimum and just shy of the so-called ‘London living wage’. Not too shabby for unskilled labour we thought. Maybe we might get paid even more than that? After all, the prestige of Burgundy is matched by its premium price tag. In London you won’t find a bottle of Beaune for much less than 20 quid. If you want a Premier or Grand Cru then you’re looking at upwards of £50-£100.

After several days of driving from the Alsace, we arrived at what was to be our home for the next fortnight.

Day 1 – Arrival

It was a pleasantly sunny Friday afternoon when we pulled up outside the isolated building in nowheresville, Burgundy. We weren’t exactly sure this was meant to be the place, as the road name Fred had given us in the email didn’t exist. Typically for rural France, the single storey, 50s style building fronted by a gravel driveway and shielded from the road by a long hedge, was wide open with no one around. Parking our van immediately outside Lou and I walked up a flight of sandstone steps and entered through the open door, part of a floor-to ceiling window about seven metres across.

Inside were rows of varnished pine coloured benches against up against similarly styled tables. The place was arranged like an officers mess or a like a German beer festival, depending on your perspective. The number of seats, around a hundred, was the first clue we had to gauging the scale of the operation here. On the wall were some print-outs of photos headed ‘Vendanges 2011’. One featured a pair of girls each sucking one end of the same sausage. Several others featured naked men in vineyards, their modesty only protected by a vine leaf. So we guessed we had come to the right place. Or at least somewhere they knew how to have fun!

Sounds like they’ve got Sloth from ‘The Goonies’ chained up down here!

Looking for some signs of life we shouted ‘Bonjour’ in our best French accents. Expectantly we listened for a reply but none came. Hopefully it wasn’t the quality of our accents. We walked towards a frosted glass door towards the back of the room. A gentle push revealed a small rectangular room containing eight single beds. all unoccupied. At the other end an open door led to a small square room with a cooker, sink, refrigerator and dining table. Presumably a kitchen. Through this was another dorm style room with five single beds, a shower and toilet room. Adjoining this was a small room with only three single beds.

It felt like the Mary Celeste of youth hostels. If you’ve ever been to a youth hostel in South America or Asia, you’ll be familiar with the set up. Lou hasn’t experienced that side of travelling. Thankfully I recognised immediately that we would be sleeping in a dormitory style scenario and the rooms we were looking at were pretty decent as dorms go. Seemingly we were on the scene before anyone else. The pick of the beds was ours and we needed to make sure we nabbed them.

Returning to the mess hall in order to grab our stuff from the van, we bumped into two characters – A little blonde lady wearing sunglasses and a portly fellow with long curly hair, carrying cooking equipment. They seemed to speak little English but beckoned us through yet another doorway, down some stairs and into a basement. Immediately we heard loud, unintelligible noises coming from the darkness. A light was turned on to reveal a dingy room about fifteen or twenty metres long with single beds lined up on each side. The noise was emanating from the back of the room. I said to Lou, “Sounds like they’ve got Sloth from ‘The Goonies’ chained up down here!”

Following the little blonde lady and the big fella towards the noise, we glance at our surroundings. Clearly this was also a sleeping quarters. Like the ground floor, it too was apparently uninhabited but the ceiling was low, the light dim and the air moist. There must be twenty beds in close proximity. We do not want to end up sleeping in the basement. Unless it also contains a private ensuite with double bed of course.

It seemed like we’re the only ‘new’ people. This made us feel like outsiders at first.

Emerging from what might have been such a private bedroom, came the apparent source of the noise. Rather than Sloth from ‘The Goonies’ this was a youngish guy with curly brown hair, wearing only boxer shorts. He looked like Screech from 90s American teen comedy ‘Saved by the Bell’. Words were exchanged loudly amongst the three French people, but without anger as such. It was more as if the young guy was slightly annoyed about having his sleep disturbed. At four in the afternoon.

We mustered enough French to say hello and ask ‘French Screech’s’ name. He apologised in perfect English to tell us, “My English is shit. My name is Pierre”. We recognised him from the Vendanges 2011 photos upstairs on the wall. So presumably, Pierre knew his way around the place. He led us back upstairs on a kind of mis-guided tour and muttered enough ‘Franglish’ words that we were confident we could settle in whichever beds we chose. Obviously the room with only three beds and not too close or far from the bathroom. It wasn’t quite the Ritz but we were realistic enough to expect single beds. At least they weren’t bunks!

Having moved our bedding and toiletries from the van to what we called the ‘maison’ we had still many unanswered questions. Would we be fed tonight? Judging by the state of the kitchen in the basement this seemed unlikely. As the evening moved on a few more people arrived.

As we settled into our single beds, which were amazingly comfortable thank god, a group of three older looking French guys greeted us. One of them was in an England Rugby shirt. He says he’s from Brittany. Presumably explaining the rare confluence of Anglo-French relations there! That’s about all we can understand. We can’t understand French. They can’t speak English. We’re even! The trio of grey bearded folk are probably in their 60s. They look a bit put out. As if we might be in ‘their’ room. Well, a married couple trumps a group of three guys. Doesn’t it? They left and set up camp in the room that joins the mess hall and our little kitchen.

A nice Spanish couple arrived in to the dorm adjoining ours and outside a young French couple parked their campervan in the large gravel car park. While I was on a car park run Loic and Kalina invited me over to talk, At first I was shy because I thought they would assume I was French and I cannot speak French. Happily it turned out that they both speak decent English. They have worked here before. Interesting!

By the end of the first day there are probably only ten people on site. It’s lucky that Lou and I have food (and wine), in the van as there is literally nothing except a petrol station nearby. And like most petrol stations in France it doesn’t have a shop.

The small communal kitchen in our relatively swish upstairs-quarters, gives us the perfect opportunity to meet the people we’ll be sweating, snoring and sharing a bathroom with for the next fortnight. The Spanish couple, Ursula and her friend Juan-Carlos, (Juanca for short – read that out loud), tell us it’s their third time harvesting grapes here. It seemed like we’re the only ‘new’ people. This made us feel like outsiders at first. However, we figured it was a good sign so many people were coming back year after year. They concurred that the conditions here were better than other places where grapes were harvested. We weren’t yet able to understand the reasons for this but we certainly would by the time the experience was over.

However, Juanca confirmed our fears (as if it wasn’t obvious enough), that the work is very painful. He told us how, after his first time becoming a Vendanger, he had swollen knees for a week. He said there are biting, stinging insects everywhere. I thought he was enjoying spooking us. Lou wass particularly nervous about the physical nature of the work. Apparently we will be doing eight hours per day and not only that, we will be working continuously, without a break for fifteen days. We’re really happy we bought those knee pads!

Later that evening we finally get to meet Fred. The apparent manager of this operation. He has our contracts, but only speaks a little English. Fred is a middle-aged Frenchman with a balding head, dark hair and a serious face. The contract is in French but clearly states we will be paid the minimum of 9.76 EUR per hour and will be working 35 hours per week. This is the maximum allowed under French law. (In France the workers have managed to maintain some rights). This doesn’t quite tally with the idea of working eight hours per day but we forget to question it, exhausted from the days adaptation.

Fred also confirms our working day will start at 7am with coffee and end at around 5pm; Food will be served in the vineyards at around 10am and for lunch; and whatever is leftover from lunch will be served for dinner. The bad news is that we may have to move bedroom as our room is normally reserved for old people. Lou practically turned on the waterworks when she heard this. We had much more privacy in this room and we feared the skanky conditions of the basement dorm may have be intended for newcomers such as ourselves. It was true that we could sleep in the van, but then we would have missed out on a major aspect of the experience (and a more comfortable bed). We awaited further news.

Day 2 – Getting to know Vous

We awake about half past six in the morning, our room flooded with light from the floor to ceiling windows. There were curtains but they weren’t quite wide enough or thick enough to inhibit the sun’s rays. If nothing else our body clocks were getting good training. It’s a Saturday. We still didn’t know when our free meals will begin and Lou and I are both people that need more than coffee for breakfast. So, we drove the van to the nearest supermarket which is about 7km away in the town of Beaune. We spent 98 EUR on shopping. This included nine bottles of wine and a load of cheese. Just to be clear, we weren’t planning to drink our wine for breakfast. No. They would be supplying the breakfast wine.

Driving back from the supermarket down the D974, a road with which we would become painfully familiar, we were battered by a heavy rain storm. A combination of slick windscreen, high winds and ancient mechanicals on our campervan resulted in the drivers-side wiper sliding too far and bending backwards around the side of the van. Emergency! It wasn’t the first time this had happened. Last time we were in the middle of six lane motorway. We thought the problem had been fixed when our mechanic back home tightened the wiper’s grip it’s rotating ball. Thankfully we were able to bend the wiper back into it’s proper place and the rain slowed quickly allowing us to continue our journey safely. Driving in heavy rain is not an option for us anymore!

Our journey so far through France has involved precious little rain. Burgundy seems different on this front. In the four first 48 hours in the region, rain sweeps in for about ten minutes every couple of hours or so. This is immediately followed by blazing sunshine. It’s a paradise of rainbows! Of course, it would be better if our Vendange was completely dry so we hoped this was a phenomenon that wouldn’t be present when the work started.

The location of our maison is smack bang in the middle of what is known as the Cote D’or. Not the ice cream. Literally translated, the ‘Gold Coast’ is so called because the leaves of the vines turn gold in the autumn. The nearest village to us is Nuits Saint Georges. Yet another well reputed name in the world of wine. Lou and I paid a visit and found Nuits Saint Georges to be a pleasant little place. The architecture is more austere than in the Alsace where we have just been.

Figuring we were about to get a pay-day we treated ourselves to some traditional Burgundian food at the Cafe de Paris in Nuits Saint Georges, which included Beef Bourginon and snails. I opted for a dish hitherto unknown to me; A sausage called Andouilette. Andouilette looks like pigs intestines and tastes like a pig sty. It was was an intensely dirty, earthy flavour. I personally enjoyed it but Lou was not so keen. Desert was cheese of course and included some classic local specialities such as the salty yellow goo of Epoisses and the creamy, minerally Brillat-Saverin.

That evening we shared a couple of our bottles of wine with Ursula and Juanca. I was excited to practice my Spanish on them. However, I found my vocabulary sorely lacking. Reading through my Spanish study book (made three years earlier in South america), it dawned on me on much I had forgotten. I was angry with myself for letting it slide. Thankfully Juanca speaks good English and Ursula tries. She wants to learn, so she speaks in English and I try to answer back in Spanish. This is a slow and painful process but aided by vino.

We still do not know what day we will start exactly, just Monday or Tuesday. We are scared to ask if there will be a day off, for fear of looking like slackers. But according to Juanca there is no day off. This sounds insane to us but we suppose at least it will be over with more quickly. Apparently on the last day everyone throws grapes and mud at each other and there is a big party with loads of free wine. That sounds good!

We learned from Ursula and Juanca that we will have porters. Juanca is a ‘Porteur’. Lou and I will technically be ‘Coupeurs’ – cutters. It sounds as if we cut the grapes, fill up a bucket and the porters take it to the end of the row. This was a relief for us because Lou and I were envisaging carrying heavy buckets of grapes down long rows of vines. The porters will do that for us. Thank God!

“By Monday this place will have a hundred people here. You will see. It will be crazy”.

Lou is still concerned about how she will cope with the physical nature of the job. Rightfully so. I hadn’t seen her this nervous about anything since our first hand-fasting ceremony back in May 2017. I notice many of Lou’s sentences start with something along the lines of, “I think I’ll be alright…” or “Yeah, I should be ok, but you know…” We talked and I told Lou it’s not a big deal if she can’t finish the work. It’s obviously more important she doesn’t end up in hospital. We agreed to see after the first couple of days of work, whether or not Lou would be able carry on.

In fairness, I was nearly as nervous. Physical challenges rarely rank high up my ‘to do’ list. Although, maybe that’s changing. Aside from the WWOOFing I’ve never had a green finger in my life. But I guess, like doing a skydive, eventually you have to leave your nerves at the door and make that jump.

Day 3 – Sight-seeing and Socialising

Sunday. Definitely no work today. The grapevine (no pun intended), had informed us we would start either on Tuesday morning or Monday afternoon. Today was a day for sight-seeing. After all what’s the point of driving all the way to Burgundy if you’re not going to look around? We spent several hours bumping the van along cobbled streets of villages in the Cote De Nuits and the Cote de Beaune – The regions North and South respectively, of the town of Beaune. The names of these villages represent some of wine’s big hitters, in price if not body: Aloxe-Corton, Meursault, Pommard, Chambolle-Musigny, Gevrey-Chambertin and of course Vosnee-Romanee, home to Domaine Romanee-Conti – renowned for being the world’s most expensive wine.

Popping back to the maison for lunch, we were surprised few other people had arrived in our absence. Especially with work potentially looming on Monday. Kalina’s word’s were, “By Monday this place will have a hundred people here. You will see. It will be crazy.” We wondered where they were all going to sleep. Things were definitely not at the level of crazy yet. The atmosphere was chilled.

One new addition to the crew that might fall into the ‘crazy’ bracket however, was a French guy called Jerome. Bald-headed, short and stocky, in his 40s, his introduction to Lou, Ursula and I involved a lot of finger pointing and wagging. All three of us stood listening intently to his French ranting, whilst understanding very little. From what we gathered he was annoyed we had not already started work and wanted to know what day we would do so. He tried to make his point by fiercely jabbing the calendar hanging on the wall with his middle finger. Then he would shrug at us as if we should understand. We responded in English that we did not know. Jerome didn’t understand English or Spanish and the cycle of abrupt questioning would continue. His loud voice and pointy finger were both extremely irritating. His second reason for ranting seemed to be that his bed only had one blanket on it. Now, given neither myself, Lou or Ursula had been given any kind of blanket or top-sheet, we weren’t that impressed with his tale of woe. In fact it was lucky we had the bedding from our campervan, as we definitely weren’t told to bring sleeping bags!

Having done our little tour of the local region it was time to go downstairs and start socialising. Our kitchen had a double door that led out on to a veranda overlooking a yard, that adjoined the main kitchen below us. The one where they would cook all the big meals. On Friday and Saturday many people seemed to be down there drinking all day and all night, making plenty of noise. Now we felt sufficiently at home to leave the shallow waters of our kitchen and join the rabble down below. Everyone was sat in a circle on plastic furniture, drinking beer and smoking something or other. Someone got out a skittle game I’d never seen before. Ursula told me it originated in Finland.

Ursula and Juanca watch on as Paulo has a throw.

Finnish skittles, or at least the miniature version they played here, is awesome! To explain briefly, there are 12 wooden skittles each of which are numbered. Players take it in turns to bowl a similarly sized lump of wood at the skittles. Each skittle that gets knocked down scores a point. Or, if you only knock down one skittle you score whatever its number. Rather than placing the skittles back in their original position though, they are erected where they fall. This creates some interesting situations when there are lots of people around! As the game goes on it gets harder and harder. Basically it’s awesome and all pub gardens, in fact everybody, should own this game!

We spent alot of time talking to Loic and Kalina. They are lovely. Like most of the others here they are in their twenties. Quite a few others speak English. Most do not. Talking to everyone we realise we have things in common with them that we don’t with anyone we’ve met so far on our travels. Namely an appreciation for alternative subcultures and electronic music. A guy called Jeremie tells us we should come to a free party near his home in Limoges after the harvest has finished. Alas it’s on the wrong side of France. Although we were secretly relieved as we’re quite enjoying our break from the London scene.

A short dark skinned guy with dreads who’s responsible for the evening’s music, consisting of what you might loosely term, ‘gypsy festival beats’, has a tobacco tin with an interesting sticker on it. He (Gaitan), tells us it literally translates as Sex, Pastis, Rugby, Pancakes. I must have been quite drunk because I told him how much I love it. It is literally the most French thing Lou and I have ever seen. So he gave us one of the stickers. It now adheres proudly to the inside of our campervan.

Our first catered meal was not too shabby either. As there were only about twenty people we ate just outside the kitchen in the basement level rather than the mess hall. There was an atmosphere of bonhomie, to use the proper french expression. The main course consisted of duck with a Ylang Ylang infused sauce. Lou and I shared our wine around the table. We’ve already made a serious dent in those nine bottles over the last few days. We had a beer or two in return.

The one possibility we put to bed was that we might have to move out of our room. Apparently there was a misunderstanding with Fred and he was not literally referring to the room being for old people. He meant people who had been there before. Which is basically everyone. But seeing as they all seem settled now, no one wants to move.

Thanks for reading ‘Becoming Vendangers (Part 1) – Get ready for good hard fun!’. We hope you enjoyed it. We would love to hear from you so please feel free to email us on antlou [at] vanutopia.com and don’t forget you can stay right up to date with all of our antics by following us on social media: Facebook; Instagram; Twitter and subscribing to our YouTube channel.

]]>http://vanutopia.com/our-adventure/becoming-vendangers-good-hard-fun-part-1/feed/4Grotto of Saint Leon: Hurtling through the Vosges towards Strasbourghttp://vanutopia.com/our-adventure/grotto-of-saint-leon-vosges-strasbourg/
http://vanutopia.com/our-adventure/grotto-of-saint-leon-vosges-strasbourg/#commentsFri, 11 Aug 2017 14:21:02 +0000http://vanutopia.com/?p=2924Starting at the Grotto of Saint Leon our adventure through France continues high up in the Vosges mountains as we voyage towards the Alsace region. On our way to the Strasbourg, we encounter questionable theme park rides, good value restaurant food and a sunset to die for. Read on! Grotto of Saint Leon On our …

]]>Starting at the Grotto of Saint Leon our adventure through France continues high up in the Vosges mountains as we voyage towards the Alsace region. On our way to the Strasbourg, we encounter questionable theme park rides, good value restaurant food and a sunset to die for. Read on!Where we’ve been this week: From the Grotto of Saint Leon to Wasselonne

Grotto of Saint Leon

On our second evening in the lake-side environs of the the Walscheid Aire, Lou and I resolved to go skinny dipping. This resolution was preceded by a walk to the infamous Grotto of Saint Leon. Actually, that’s not true. We didn’t make it to the Grotto. The signposted walk was up a road with no hard shoulder. A very steep one. Given the French drive like nutters at the best of times, we decided it was better to surround ourselves in the the relative safety of Heidi, our metallic oblong and drive there the following morning.

One of the most annoying things we have to deal with as full-time van-dwellers is keeping our campervan clean. We’ve all been there: Friday night; dinner party; can’t be arsed to do the dishes. Leave them in the kitchen, ‘soaking’. Except if we do that in our tiny house on wheels, it’s as if you’ve left the dishes in your bedroom overnight. All manner of smells are emitted. Don’t even talk to us about the flies. It is impossible to keep them out. They’re like super-agile-flying-cockroaches, as Mary Poppins might have said.

You can understand how annoying it is when you get woken up at five in the morning by the fly who’s gorged on your congealed, cruddy pan and then wants to regurgitate it on the corner of your left eyebrow and in doing so, tickles you awake. And not the good kind of tickling. That’s the reason we decided to have the night off cooking. We struggle to remember a time we’ve eaten out. It’s true several instances of McDonalds and one Burger King have peppered our ten weeks on the road. (It was just for the WiFi, honest). Not bad considering we got takeaway at least twice a week back in London. Obviously the main driver of this discipline isn’t the desire to hone ourselves into perfectly chiselled waifs. It’s our lack of budget.

Nevertheless, as we about turned on our aborted walk to the Grotto of Saint Leon, the evening sun was slow-roasting the backs of our necks like pigs on a spit and nothing was going to stop us grabbing an ice cold beer at the appealingly named Cafe Le Grotte. We look at the menu. It’s Friday so Pizza is off. Who’d want Pizza on a Friday? Local speciality ‘tarte flambee’ is off too. Guess they get bored of that. Just leaves kebabs then. Deux Doner Kebabs it is… or as they call them ‘Pain’. That’s pain, as in ‘…du vin, du boursin’, (Or, if you never watched TV in the 90s: Rhymes with van).

We’d been told about the Kebabs in this area of France by our friends Tim and Sarah, whom we met several weeks ago in that dingy village Aire by the lake, where someone got there knickers in a twist about us flying a drone, and called the police. Tim’s opinion was, and we paraphrase: “It was like they’d just stuffed a loaf of bread with meat. It was awful”. A traditionalist clearly. Frankly, we thought it sounded great. Or at least a change from the norm of soggy, anaemic pitta found in the most disreputable of London’s Kebab houses.

We weren’t to be disappointed. Although sitting at a table, we had our very own hand-held cone of suspiciously tasty meat, (Pork?) with slices of onion and garlic sauce. Tim was right in one respect. The meat was housed in something that bore a resemblance to a hollowed out loaf of bread. Maybe he had a stale bit. This was like a really fresh white bap, with just a little bit of a crust. Not hard like a French Baguette Much lighter than the breads you get in real Turkish places back home, which in no way should be used as a wrap. No, when the baker baked this bap he obviously did so with pride. Stuffed with meat and great value at less than five euros each. It was just a bit odd watching the group opposite us eat essentially the same thing spread out on a plate they paid more than 8 Euros for. We’re quite happy to lick the garlic sauce off our fingers, thank you very much.

The Grotto of Saint Leon: Lou for scale

We never did go skinny dipping. Now we’re in the mountains, the temperature dips about ten degrees when the sun goes down. We did however, succeed in getting up early the next morning and making it to the infamous Grotto of Saint Leon. Lesson be learn’t when Google maps offers you multiple navigations: Pick the long one. In France any road without a number suffixed should be considered passable only in a four-wheel-drive. Having got half way up the mountainside and realising it would take longer to walk the remainder of the way up the heavily rutted dirt tracks we turned back and parked outside a chapel where it was a short stroll through the forest to the Grotto of Saint Leon.

Of all the Vosges Mountain’s caverns, the Grotto of Saint Leon is the deepest. This is what we read on the local tourist website before we arrived. Sounded impressive. Was it? The cavern is around twenty metres wide and the same deep and about seven metres at it’s highest point. The ceiling slopes down towards the rear. This isn’t really deep enough to house interesting wild life and although you can see the sandstone strata there are no specific formations of great interest. The overall vibe of the cavern is not helped by the rusty metal bars inserted into the ceiling as some kind of lighting gantry. They perform the nativity here every year and indeed the shape of the cavern is as if God himself designed it specifically for the purposes of relieving local families of their hard-earned cash. Thankfully, it’s actually free. We left rather underwhelmed.

Dabo & Rocher de Saint Leon

It’s actually possible to walk through the hills from the Grotto of Saint Leon to the village of Dabo via a marked trail. Supposedly this takes 3.5 hours. We actually quite fancied it, but the problem of travelling with the van is that you can’t tell it to meet you there, as if it were ‘KIT’ from Knightrider. Although, now we’re heading towards the era of fully autonomous vehicles, this may soon be a reality. The drive took about twenty five minutes, climbing further up into the Vosges along some comfortably smooth but very steep curves.

The further South we’ve moved in France, the hillier and more mountainous it gets. This has resulted in some rather horrendous miles to the gallon figures. Our first tank of petrol, used mostly in the flat lands of Flanders lasted us for 300 miles. On the hilly roads we’re getting just 200 miles to a tank. The extra fuel spending is putting pressure on our already tight budget. We knew this was one of the challenges of heading towards Alsace, before we left. The mountainous regions are always going to be supping away at your fuel. At least the extra petrol spend is being off-set by our new found freedom to stay off-grid for longer, caused by the breakage of our water pump. At the time of writing we’ve survived without plugging in to 240v for a week. This has reduced our spending on campsites and Aires. Although we are using more deodorant, having decreased our access to showers.

Looking up at the chapel on Rocher de Saint Leon from our parking spot.

The village of Dabo is said to have an elevation of 459 metres. On a Saturday the little town square, dominated by the obligatory church, actually has some atmosphere compared to other villages we’ve been to. There is a young boy squeezing away at this accordion with gusto and the occasional melody. A bar is open and people are sipping on beers or coffee. Lou and I take a visit to the Tourist Bureau, which turns out to be the post office. Having found the correct doorway we picked up some leaflets about the Alsace wine route which we’re approaching and we were excited to discover there was a luge ride nearby. We’ll come back to that.

Our parking spot for the night, the Rocher, (rock) de Saint Leon towers over the village of Dabo, and most of the Vosges mountains. Yep. Saint Leon is big business in these parts. On the crest of a peak, approximately 660 metres high, the chapel is 2 Euros to get in. Pulling in to the car park after a dizzying circular hill climb, we were greeted by a panorama of pine trees, scattered with a sprinkling of villages backed by moody grey skies signalling the impending rain.

The view from the chapel was only slightly more impressive.In case you’re thinking of Googling Saint Leon is it’s worth noting that there was no actual Saint Leon. Leo was actually the name of the Pope elected in 1046AD who was in fact Bruno de Dabo and was took the name Pope Leo IX. Not being of any religious Persuasion, Lou and I have never got our heads round Papel nomenclature. In our opinion Bruno sounds more like a boxer than pope so we’ll run with that reasoning!

Sunset at Rocher de Saint Leon

Having briefly considered finding a more sheltered parking place because we couldn’t erect Heidi’s pop-top due to strong winds, we were immensely glad we decided to stay the night. It turned out we had a prime spot for what must be one of the most spectacular sunsets in the Vosges Mountains, if not the whole of France. Over the course of several hours we watched the yellow yoke of the sun morph into a flaming red ball of fire, splashing into the horizon, followed by the glowing marmalade embers of of wispy, ethereal clouds. St Leon himself would have been proud.

The view is ridiculous and the sunset pure perfection. We highly recommend hanging around on Rocher Da Dabo for the sunset but take a look at the time-lapse video we made, for a flavour of this awesome phenomena. It’s a shame we had to film it through our windscreen because we couldn’t mount the camera outside due to the strong winds!

Taken for a ride at Plan d’Incline

As we were saying above, Lou and I discovered a luge ride at a place called Plan d’Incline, not far from Dabo. Basically you sit in a cart and slide down an alpine hillside. A ride Lou is familiar with from childhood trips to Austria. We were both excited about the thought of racing through the trees, barely in control, so it totally justified us doubling back on ourselves and causing extra mileage on our way to Wasselonne, our “hopping off point” for getting to Strasbourg. Or did it?

The Plan d’incline, also known as the Inclined Plane of Saint-Louis-Arzviller is a boat lift that replaced a series of fourteen lock gates on the canal connecting the River Rhine and the Seine. Before it was opened in 1969, this would have taken a day to navigate. We were just there for the ‘Alpine Luge’ ride which seemed like it might have been built trying to cover up for the fact the boat lift isn’t really that interesting. We would have investigated the Plan d’Incline at closer quarters but it cost 10 euros each which seemed a disproportionate use of our meagre budget. The luge ride only only cost a few Euros. Was it worth it? See what you think.

The magnificent Chateau Luzelbourg

Rather than head back to Dabo where it would have a relatively quick drive to Wasselonne, we kept up the spirit of our slow travel by opting to take in the scenery. The small town of Phalsbourg was only a fifteen minute drive North and it supposedly had an Aire with some services we desperately needed like a laundry. However, we arrived to a ghost town. The Aire, which apparently held up to 60 motorhomes, (nightmare) only had three vans present, including ourselves. A short walk in to the town square, revealed it had been set up for some kind of festivities where everything was painted red. But no one was to be seen. On a weekend afternoon we were surrounded by closed restaurants with empty patios. Eerie. Then again, we should know by now Sunday in France is a day when you set your expectations to zero.

Having got used to the presence of at least some other life, we headed back to Lutzelbourg, a tiny village we had passed through on the way to Phalsbourg, but had at least one pleasant looking canal-side bar open. This doubling back on ourselves was motivated not only by the chance of a cold drink but by the fact our Park4night app had pointed us towards the Chateau de Lutzelbourg.

Pedal to the metal, we thrashed Heidi up the steep winding road for about 2km and found ourselves perched atop a cliff where the ruins of the castle stood. The Chateau de Lutzelbourg was nearly as spectacular as the Rocher de Dabo in terms of the view and the ruins were certainly a lot more interesting to clamber over than the chapel had been. It was scorchingly hot on top of this rock and there was no shade for the van so having had a good look around, we ambled down the fairly steep but pleasantly shaded footpath to the bar by the canal.

We didn’t quite mean to spend as long in the bar, or rather outside the bar, as we did but it was so hot we were almost dreading being back in the van to make food before sun down. Happily it had some of the best WiFi we’ve found in France and it enabled us to catch up on our social networking and research which wineries we would be visiting on our way through the Alsace.

On the verge of the setting sun we managed to capture some rad aerial footage of the castle with our drone. This is seriously worth watching so take a peak!

Having broken our ‘eating out’ seal (worryingly for the budget), we ordered a couple of really tasty pizzas which we scoffed down before taking the twenty minute twilight hike back to our perch. There must have been epic levels of salt in the pizza as we both had one of those sleeps referred to as “the worst sleep ever”. Awaking every hour with a mouth like sand paper and sticky tape then getting up to go to the toilet every other hour because you’ve drunk so much water.

Strasbourg but not as we know it

Now in need of a campsite, or in other words a good shower, we drove to Wasselonne’s municipal campsite. The price is steep but when you have a good wash as infrequently as we do, can you put a price on hot water and a sparkling clean bathroom? It also affords us to quite literally, recharge our batteries before we spend hopefully the next week off-grid at various wineries.

If the mantra, ‘set your expectations to zero on a Sunday’, has partially defined our trip so far, then a second mantra to keep in mind is, ‘Don’t visit big cities in the month of August’. Whilst we’ve so far avoided the lure of the big city, Lou has fond childhood memories of Strasbourg so we agreed that it might be a day out worth busting the budget for. Conveniently there is a bus immediately outside the campsite that drops you in the town centre. It costs 2.50 Euro per journey and takes around half an hour.

We must have turned into country bumpkins because our first impressions of Strasbourg were not so positive. Everywhere there were groups of unemployed looking men. We’re quite sure they weren’t just youths on holiday. Lots of shops had closed down. One guy was so drunk even his crutches couldn’t keep him upright, as he lurched his way along the pavement crashing into shop frontages. There was definitely a down-at-heal vibe. The visibility of these social problem was a little ironic considering this is the home of the European Parliament.

MAMCS – Strasbourg Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art

Our first port of call in Strasbourg was the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MAMCS). We try to visit the Modern Art museum in every city we go to. Almost missing the entrance completely because it looks more like the back door, when we finally made it inside it was a pleasant surprise to get the reduced rate of entry. Only 3.50 Euros each. Lou mused that they thought we were students. Much more likely was the fact that the upper floors of the museum were empty. We sped round the white washed, boxy rooms typical of a contemporary modern art museum, in around an hour. We presume many rooms were empty due to France being on holiday. This is August after all. Anyway there were still some decent exhibits, including a day to night themed area with suitably wanky works of art. The kind people suggest could have been done by their teenage daughter in a college art class. Hey, we’ve all gotta start somewhere! Anyway, we’d love to go back as we must have missed at least two-thirds of what they could possibly display in the three-storey gallery. August however, is not the month.

We call this one, “Lady in the clutch of giant poo man” at MAMCS

Conveniently, we were freed from the shackles of art just in time for lunch and we intended to try some of the local Alsatian cuisine which consists largely of smoked meats, saurkraut and what’s known as the ‘tarte flambee’. Our intended destination, a restaurant we had seen recommended on the excellent 2foodtrippers blog, was closed for the holidays. There was a note on the door confirming this. Despite being packed with tourists it was remarkable how many restaurants in Strasbourg were closed. Primarily those that served local food. Disappointment! On the upside we should be able to find local cuisine at lower prices in less touristy parts of the Alsace.

Strasbourg Cathedral

The third box to tick in Strasbourg was of course the world famous Cathedral. If the term “fugly” (fabuolously ugly) should ever applied to a building. This is the one. It is the tallest medieval built building still standing and it is bloody impressive, with its gothic grandeur towering over the hordes of tourists buzzing around the base. How kind of them to let one enter for free! Of course they’ve offset this generosity by positioning souvenir stalls at frequent intervals around the inside. You are meant to pay 2 Euros to light a candle, or 10 Euros if you want the ones that burn for a few days. Although there’s no one to stop you giving less generously. Except the eyes of the lord. There are even a number of stand-alone machines selling ‘medallions’.

Lou made me laugh when she said, “You put your coin in worth some money, it goes through the machine and when you get your coin back, it’s worth nothing!” Underlining the point, it’s much more valuable to buy experiences, rather than things. In fairness though, the church must have some serious overheads to cover, keeping this gothic masterpiece looking its beastly best. You won’t find any pictures of the cathedral on this blog due to our blanket ban on pictures of churches. Before you say it, the Rocher de Saint Leon is a chapel, not a church. So there.

Historic cellar of the civil hospitals of Strasbourg

For us, no visit anywhere in France is complete without drinking or at least buying some wine. Strasbourg is home to one of the world’s more interesting wine shops: The ‘Cave des Hospices de Strasbourg’. The building of a wine cellar underneath the town’s hospital is not in fact unique. The town of Beaune in Burgundy also boasts a wine cellar in the basement of its hospital. And don’t think that they’ve just re-purposed the basement. Oh no it goes without saying that every hospital should have a wine cellar, for medicinal purposes of course. That was genuinely the thinking in France before the 1800s.

What is special about Strasbourg’s ‘cave’, built in 1395AD, is that it houses a barrel of the oldest known wine on earth. A thousand litre oak container with liquid that dates from 1472! Sadly, we’re not allowed to taste it although it’s fair to say the wine is probably past its best. The last person to drink it was apparently General Charles de Gaulle in 1946. Although, tasting notes left nearby the barrel state that whilst the smell of the wine is complex, it has a flavour of straw. A word usually more associated with colour than flavour in the lexicon of wine tasting.

Cave des Hospices de Strasbourg: Oldest wine in the world.

Also present are a whole host of other wooden barrels, one as large as 26’000 litres. The cellar, unsurprisingly chilly and damp, reminds me of the wine merchant I used to manage. This is also chilling. The Cave des Hospices de Strasbourg was restored in 1996 is used to mature some of the Alsace’s most famous grape varieties, including Riesling, Pinot Noir and Gewurztraminer. Of course, they have all of these for sale in the shop, so we help ourselves to what was a rather over-priced bottle of red (7 Euros). Still a bargain compared to Alsacian Pinot Noir in a UK retail outlet.

We arrived back to our campsite in Wasselonne, happy to find a bottle of Gewurtrztraminer we’d tasted the previous day, chilling in our fridge. Cold wine. A rare luxury! Conveniently the campsite does nightly wine tastings throughout the high season. We are at the gateway to the Alsace wine route and we cannot wait to get stuck in to all the fabulous fermented grape juice the region has to offer. More on that soon!

***

Thanks for reading ‘Grotto of Saint Leon: Hurtling through the Vosges towards Strasbourg’. We hope you enjoyed it. We would love to hear from you so please feel free to email us on antlou [at] vanutopia.com and don’t forget you can stay right up to date with all of our antics by following us on social media: Facebook; Instagram; Twitter and subscribing to our YouTube channel.

]]>http://vanutopia.com/our-adventure/grotto-of-saint-leon-vosges-strasbourg/feed/2A Week in the Grand Est from Champagne to Lorrainehttp://vanutopia.com/our-adventure/week-grand-est-from-champagne-to-lorraine/
http://vanutopia.com/our-adventure/week-grand-est-from-champagne-to-lorraine/#commentsFri, 04 Aug 2017 15:30:38 +0000http://vanutopia.com/?p=2892Our epic slow travel continues across France, in the Grand Est from Champagne to Lorraine. More countryside, more nature and more mountains but just as much cheese and wine. Join us for this week’s feast of French spirit! Camp D’Attila Saying ‘yes’ is great. It can get you all sorts of places you wouldn’t have …

]]>Our epic slow travel continues across France, in the Grand Est from Champagne to Lorraine. More countryside, more nature and more mountains but just as much cheese and wine. Join us for this week’s feast of French spirit!

Camp D’Attila

Saying ‘yes’ is great. It can get you all sorts of places you wouldn’t have got otherwise. Do you ever think to yourself, “You know what. Sometimes I should say no to things more?” This week’s two-night stop at Camp D’Attila taught us that is definitely the case. After all, we’re not having some kind of holiday here. We’ve got publishing deadlines to meet. Self-imposed admittedly. But hey, that’s what self-employment is all about. Self-motivation!

Camp D’Attila – Grand Est from Champagne to Lorraine

Those of you who subscribe to our weekly email, (and if you don’t then please do so forthwith!) will know myself and my wife Lou are easily seduced by the allure of booze, especially when it’s offered for free. On reflection, our decision to stay two nights at the otherwise mediocre Aire at Camp D’Attila was the root of our ills. It must have been some kind of cosmic karma. Like all Aires, it has what is known as a service point. At a minimum, these offer a place to pour your chemical toilet. (Or in our case, wee potty). More on that later. Anyhow, this particular service point had an electricity outlet that operated for free. It was mean’t to be 2 Euros, but it just worked. Infinitely. It reminded me of the time I was on a ferry to Bilbao. Back in the days when it was just an ugly port town and not the artistic powerhouse it is today. As a kid I was obsessed with pressing buttons on stuff. Like most young boys probably. So on the ferry to Bilbao I pressed the buttons on one of those Klix vending machines, or maybe it was a different brand but you know, the ones that dispense hot drinks in while-you-wait tire fitters. And I got a hot beefy drink, for free! God that was the best day of my life at the time. So, this Aire had free electricity. This is great because it means we can pump out more awesome content for you, or at least practice making it better.

Camp D’Attila – Grand Est from Champagne to Lorraine

Camp D’Attila itself is basically a giant sandcastle – A quick Wikipedia will tell you it was used by the Romans and there’s no actual evidence of the the Hun himself – Mr Attila, having used the site at all. Make no mistake. We weren’t there to get the historical lowdown. It was just a convenient stopping point between wherever we were before that, (you’ll have to sign up for the weekly email to get that kind of detail), and the next place. At the time we didn’t even know where the next place was going to be. Such is the vague spontaneity of our travels. So, it happened to be a Friday and it also happened to be the last weekend of July and August is the month when all French people go on holiday. One thing that seems programmed in to the average working person, wherever you go in the world, even when you’re on extended breaks from work… Friday is always a big night.

The opening weeks of our adventure were an isolated affair but now we’re in holiday season, our little campervan is engulfed by massive white boxes on wheels. Lou and I feel like the youngest people on earth. The youngest people over four feet tall that is. Strangely, given our capacity to sleep in and turn up late to places, most people turn up later to Aires than us. We figure this is because they can afford to drive more than twenty miles a day and therefore can tend to go big distances driving all day long.

Camp D’Attila – Grand Est from Champagne to Lorraine

So Friday afternoon came, and a particularly large recreational vehicle, (nothing to be confused with recreational drugs we hasten to add), pulled up alongside our little Heidi. If nothing else, at least it afforded us some shade. Having walked around the mound of earth that is Camp D’Attila – Probably as useful for keeping invaders out as putting a skate ramp outside your front door – We returned to our tiny home on wheels to have some chamomile and nettle tea and document Lou’s latest recipe, which you can get here! It must have been after five when Jean-Claude from the giant RV next door gestured that we should join him and his wife for an… aperatif!

This is the point we should have said no. This was no aperatif. If we were looking at a work of art it would have been a collage of glassblown artefacts representative of the word, ‘headache’. Ouzo, Pastis (Pernod / Ricard, except this was the budget stuff) and something called Picon de Biere. Apparently you add it to beer. It tastes of orange and it’s about 20% alcohol, which is an improvement on your average lager really. Internally, we both new this couple who could barely speak English and desperately wanted someone to rant at other than themselves, were going to get us smashed. They proceeded to roll out the suspicious pork products and some rather tasty honeydew melon while Jean Claude regaled us with his tales of travelling the world, using only five words or less. Primarily the words, ‘big’, ‘tax’ and ‘problem’. At least we felt in no way bad about pausing to use Google translate. Jean Claude is also the oldest person we’ve ever seen use the Ali-G finger slap on a consistent basis.

Camp D’Attila – Grand Est from Champagne to Lorraine

Bizarrely Jean Claude offers us both a shower in his behemouth RV, having told us he had been somewhere else and allowed seven people to have a shower in there. Presumably we smell. Or, as Lou and I conjectured later, they have a secret camera rigged to film strangers having a shower in their RV. Either way we both took them up on the offer. So, if you see any videos of us floating round the internet please accept our apologies.

Skipping forward a few hours and a whole flotilla of white boxes have turned up. Happily some of them are German. This is good because they at least speak reasonable English, which opens up whole new avenues of conversation for me and Lou. Unfortunately one of them had brought along a bottle of some weird, red. Italian spirit, (Does no one drink wine around here?!) and is dishing it out shot after shot. OK we admit. The shot glasses were provided by ourselves. Along with the music from our portable speaker. We had no alcohol to offer, having drunk it all in Champagne. However, we think all the members of this soiree, (party would be too strong a word), could count themselves lucky to have met us – The only travellers in France carrying a stock of glowsticks.

Jean Claude’s Behemouth

As the only British people present. We felt it was our duty be the last man and woman standing. Which we duly were. Having drunk everyone else under the table. We went to bed in need of some water. No problem we thought. A quick 2 Euro coin in the Service Point and Bob’s yer mother’s Grandad, or however the lineage thing works. So having sucked up free ‘leccy for the last 36 hours we were rudely bitten on the arse by finding out there was no running water. It wasn’t working! We should probably add that this particular Aire had a toilet of the ‘squat’ variety. Make of that what you will.

The karma of free electricity had come back to haunt us. With no available drinking water, we lay passed out on our folding van bed absorbing the sugar content of all that vile booze, raging with thirst. I literally dreamt of gushing fountains and waterfalls. The next morning Lou was still unconscious having been sick into our portable toilet just before we went to bed. Very unlike her. Those of you who know her will understand the gravity of the situation.

The portable toilet is like our chemical toilet except we don’t use chemicals. We just wee in it. Number 2’s are done in a plastic bag. Ideally we’d shit in a hedge. After all what’s better? A biodegradable poo in a hedge? Or a poo in a plastic bag that won’t degrade for a million years. Society, in it’s infinite wisdom. has decreed the latter. We fall in line. Mostly.

Waking up first, I sensed emergency. We had to get water and we had to get it now. We already felt like death. Let’s not turn feelings into reality now. Almost literally rolling out of bed, thorough our sliding door and into the open doorway of the motorhome opposite, I begged the nice German man for water. He was of course, happy to oblige. Probably having a tank with ten million litres underneath his bed. I awoke Lou with the sustenance and we suckled from the teat of life inducing “Eau-de-vie” until it was all gone and we slept for several more hours. When we regained consciousness a few hours later, probably around 10am , everyone had left. We found a handwritten note slipped into a sandal we’d carelessly left lying on the ground outside our van. One of the Germans, admittedly we couldn’t put the face to the name, thanked us for everything we had brought to the party. Proof, if proof was needed, Germans know, that like David Hasslehoff… glow sticks are still cool.

Pont-a-Mousson

An increasingly common occurrence for us in our navigation through France is that we end up somewhere completely different to where we expected when we set out. This week has exemplified the scenario on multiple occasions. First up, having having exhausted the ‘pity water’ from our German friend and driven our dishevelled carcasses to a nearby supermarket to stock up, we aimed for a France Passion site in the town of Verdun that sold what the French call ‘Dragees’. These are those sugared almond favours you get at weddings. The sweety kind. The place looked massive and it seemed a bit out of the ordinary compared to the average France Passion farm or vineyard, so a little bit interesting, but when we turned up it the shop was closed and the parking was a giant area of tarmac, walled with concrete slabs. We’ve become used to more beautiful settings and sweating our hangovers off in a bland, grey car park didn’t really appeal. Onward!

Our longest single journey – Grand Est from Champagne to Lorraine

Unusually we had pre-programmed the co-ordinates of our next two potential parking spots as a point on Google maps. The first being approximately half way to the second point. My phone said it was 36 minutes to the next place, another France Passion stop next to a fishing lake, Lachaussee. However, my phone decided it wouldn’t connect to our MiFi device that we use to get the internet so we switched to Louise’s phone, which stated the journey would take just over an hour. We didn’t think much of it figuring it was a Saturday and there must be holiday traffic. The scenery rolled by and it seemed like we’d travelled an awfully long way. As we pulled up to the marina at Pont-a-Mousson on the banks of the river Moselle, it began to dawn on us that we’d accidentally navigated to the the second point on the map rather than the first. Hence the extra journey time. The down side of this was that the parking at Pont-a-Mousson was a paying Aire. Additionally we were once again on tarmac albeit with a more pleasant riverside setting but now surrounded by a glut of beige lunchboxes-on-wheels. We had planned to come here but were trying to avoid Saturday as we knew it would be rammed. Our little Heidi was dwarfed!

Can you spy Heidi? – Grand Est from Champagne to Lorraine

The upside was that at least the 10 Euro fee included included water electricity, showers and more importantly, washing machines. This is actually good value as a big wash at a campsite will cost seven or eight euros alone. There was also WiFi. Obviously, being France it only worked for about five minutes in every hour. As we had smashed or mileage budget for the week, in one day of driving, (the furthest single trip of our journey so far), we resolved to spend two nights at here. Which was lucky as that’s how long it took to dry the vast amount of laundry we’d accumulated.

Buzzing… – Grand Est from Champagne to Lorraine

We spent most of the Sunday writing up our blog post on Champagne and doing said laundry so it wasn’t until about 8 o’clock that we finally made it in to town. We weren’t hopeful of finding any action given our experiences so far. Bars have tended to shut early and everything is closed on a Sunday. We were in luck! We had our first, ‘enjoying a beer in the town square’ moment. It was a balmy evening and there were a mix of British tourists and locals who’d come out to play. Quite a change compared to the sleepy villages we’d come across so far. Then again this is a town of of 15,000 people. Something we hadn’t realised until we arrived. Apparently Pont-a-Mousson’s riverside location meant it was of strategic importance during World War I and where else would you expect this to be explained than an episode of Charly Brown…

Really? – Grand Est from Champagne to Lorraine

Lindre-Basse

We were aiming for Tarquimpol but once again, the Gods decreed we wouldn’t be staying there. The parking spot, found through our favourite travelling app, Park4Night had been turned into a building site. Doubling back on ourselves slightly we weaved our way through the forest greenery to a car park on the other side of the Lake Lindre – a place called Lindre-Basse. Normally we avoid car parks for obvious reasons. No. Not dogging. They don’t have dogging in France. Or if they do no one’s invited us. Actually this car park one has toilet cleanliness that George Michael would have been proud of.

Lake Lindre – Grand Est from Champagne to Lorraine

Yes! Quiche! But what’s the other thing Lorraine is famous for? That bird that delivers babies. No. Not the midwife. Just the Stork. This place is a sanctuary for Storks, during the warmer months before they jet back to Africa for winter. Very sensible. They are difficult animals to photograph so what you see here will have to do. Need to invest in a zoom lens. There are special towers built for them to nest on and walking through the forest leads to a bird watching lookout which is quite cool if you’ve got the patience. And a nice zoom lens. Which we don’t. Yet. What we learnt was that Storks sound like a cross between a pterodactyl and velociraptor. You’ll know what we mean if you’ve seen Jurassic Park.

Stork – Grand Est from Champagne to Lorraine

Niderviller

We’re really enjoying France’s complete lack of regulation on where you can park, outside of towns and cities. Wild camping has several major benefits over other parking methods on our budget. You can get away from people entirely; There’s nowhere to spend any money; You’re in the thick of it, nature-wise. Again this was another place we found on park4night and we spent two nights here because it was so beautiful. Of course we only came here because our intended stop in nature was being occupied by a gang of fishermen who presumably weren’t prepared to have riff-raff like us scaring off the fish with our jauntily coloured van.

That view – Grand Est from Champagne to Lorraine

Happily, our next selection from the park4night app turned out out to be a gem. We were parked overlooking a canal, approximately 20 metres below us, on top of a tunnel, lined on either side with almost impenetrable forest that seemed to be developing autumnal colours already. We say almost impenetrable because of course, we did penetrate it. On our way we found some fly-agaric mushroom, (gets you high but you might die).

Fun guy to be with – Grand Est from Champagne to Lorraine

Lou is always on the look out for craft related things and her eagle-eye spotted some old looking kiln’s in the village West of our parking spot. Turns out Niderviller ‘faience’ (glazed pottery) is the most famous in France and they’ve been producing these ornaments for Granny’s mantelpiece since 1735. Lou loves ceramics but turned her nose up at the rather pink frilly designs revealed by a quick Google images search.

Like Stoke but nicer – Grand Est from Champagne to Lorraine

Walscheid

Notice how German these place names are getting? This is because we’re heading for the border and more specifically Strasbourg and the beginning of our next wine route! We only arrived via a painful detour to Sarrebourg, a town with many industrial estates where we hoped to get a replacement camping chair for our cheapo Argos jobbie which broke under the wight of my burgeoning cheese belly. We ended up in Decathlon and spent 30 Euros on something more akin to a wheel-chair without wheels, in the hope it wouldn’t be another case of, ‘you by cheap you buy twice’.

Spot the petanque ball – Grand Est from Champagne to Lorraine

Now the scenery is becoming more mountainous as we reach the Vosges foothills. The Etang de Walscheid provides a simple Aire, (free water but no electricity) next to the thing Lou has been dying to get to for ages: A lake you can actually swim in! This one has a fake sandy beach and we’re totally surrounded by pine forested hills. Even the houses round here are look like something out of Swiss Family Robinson. The cows are even Highland cows. Which we suppose makes sense what with these lands being higher than the other bits of Eastern France we’ve been to so far! At the time of writing we’re about to go to the grotto of St Leon. Hopefully, this won’t involve sitting on the lap of an assassin…

Highland! – Grand Est from Champagne to Lorraine

This has definitely been the longest distance we’ve covered in a single week. We’ve increased the pace of our slow travel mainly because we want to spend as long as possible in the Alsace region before we reach Burgundy where we have work starting at the beginning of September… the grape harvest!

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Thanks for reading ‘A week in the Grand Est from Champagne to Lorraine’ We hope you enjoyed it. We would love to hear from you so please feel free to email us on antlou [at] vanutopia.com and don’t forget you can stay right up to date with all of our antics by following us on social media: Facebook; Instagram; Twitter and subscribing to our YouTube channel.

]]>http://vanutopia.com/our-adventure/week-grand-est-from-champagne-to-lorraine/feed/15 of the Best France Passion sites in Champagnehttp://vanutopia.com/our-adventure/best-france-passion-sites-in-champagne/
http://vanutopia.com/our-adventure/best-france-passion-sites-in-champagne/#respondSun, 30 Jul 2017 18:00:02 +0000http://vanutopia.com/?p=683Ever wondered how Champagne is made? Ever wished you could drink Champagne more cheaply? In this article we’re going to show you five of the best France Passion sites in Champagne, where you can enjoy a first class experience on a modest budget, using a campervan or motorhome. Champagne… Just the word conjures-up feelings of luxury …

]]>Ever wondered how Champagne is made? Ever wished you could drink Champagne more cheaply? In this article we’re going to show you five of the best France Passion sites in Champagne, where you can enjoy a first class experience on a modest budget, using a campervan or motorhome.

Champagne… Just the word conjures-up feelings of luxury and celebration, the sound of corks being popped and the fizz of bubbles frothing over the rim of a glass. Unfortunately for most of us, including Lou and I, this particular sparkling wine is out of our price range on all but the most special of occasions.

It might surprise some of you but when we were originally planning this six month trip across France in our little campervan, we didn’t include the world famous Champagne region of France in our original itinerary. Our main concerns were:

1. Would frequent purchasing of Champagne fit in with our budget conscious lifestyle?

And conversely….

2. Would our, loud and proud campervan and, “happy to go a few days without a shower”, attitude to life, fit in with the Champagne region’s upmarket stylings?

After all, if a five pound bottle of supermarket Prosecco is like chowing down on a Big Mac at McDonalds, then Champagne is the equivalent of taking high tea at the Ritz.

As it happens, with my background in wine retail and the fact my wife Lou and I live full time in a tiny house on wheels, we’re perfectly positioned to guide you on a trip through some of the world’s most prestigious vineyards.

Planning our journey to the best France Passion sites in Champagne

Lou and I tend to plan as we go, allowing for a certain amount of spontaneity. When we do any forward planning, we have several things in mind. These are:

a) Where can we stay as cheaply as possible?

b) How far apart will our parking places be?

c) Where can we find services like electricity and water?

d) How beautiful and/or interesting will the area we’re going, be?

We’ve found a simple way to answer most of the above questions:

We are members of the France Passion scheme. This means for one night you can park your campervan or motorhome on a participating host’s land for free. Frequently these places are farms or vineyards. You get the opportunity to sample their goods and get a little insight into the French way of life. There’s no obligation to buy from them although it’s usually possible to do so. There is no catch. You simply pay the yearly membership fee. (Around £30).

France Passion is what underpins our entire trip as it enables us to travel on a small budget. Yes, we could park night-after-night in a free ‘Aire’, but often, these are little more than glorified car parks. France Passion sites are often quite idyllic in comparison and usually come with a feeling of tranquillity and potentially, an insight into different cultures.

There are thousands of France Passion hosts across the country and this dense network means we can slow travel in our campervan. You are never far away from a free overnight stay. So rather than blasting down the motorway, we usually take the scenic route. To give you an idea of the pace we’re going at, it’s taken us seven weeks to reach the Champagne region from Calais. A journey that takes most people only a few hours when driving direct.

Our budget for finding the best France Passion sites in Champagne

We have two budgets. A financial budget and a mileage budget. (You can read more about them HERE). Of course, to make the most of our visits to the Champagne houses, we wanted to buy a bottle at each place and this was way outside our normal spending. (We’ve existed on 3 Euro bottles of red for most of the trip so far).

To stay within budget we estimated we could visit a maximum of seven or eight Champagne houses in a two week period. This would be interspersed with wild camping and the occasional ‘necessary evil’ of a campsite or paid Aire for things like electricity and showers.

We weren’t entirely sure how much a bottle of Champagne was going to cost, (although we certainly found out), but we knew we could offset it against not purchasing those daily essentials, cheese and wine, which amount to around 5 Euros a day. We were also confident we could underspend our daily budget on the next leg of our trip from Champagne to Alsace.

Narrowing down our search for the best France Passion sites in Champagne

A quick flick through the France Passion guide, (2017 edition) reveals approximately 65 Champagne producers that welcome campervans and motorhomes for a night. Lou and I aren’t going to hide the fact we cannot speak French.

A convenient way to narrow down our search for the best France Passion sites in Champagne was to pick only one’s that were listed in the guide as having hosts who spoke English. Obviously, Champagne tastes the same in any language but we hoped a host that spoke the same language would give us the best possible experience too.

Selecting our route to the best France Passion sites in Champagne

The length from West to East of Parc Naturel Montagne de Reims is a driving distance of only a bit less than 70km, much less than we would normally do in a two week period. This saving on petrol, seemed another way to offset the price of Champagne. So it was the Marne Valley, (Vallee de le Marne), that we chose to focus on for this journey through Champagne.

Note, the Champagne region stretches a long way South East of of the Marne Valley, but we are heading to the Alsace in the East of France and we felt that it wouldn’t be possible to visit these more Southerly places without busting the budget both in terms of finance and fuel.

Below is a map that broadly shows the route we took. Although, we drove North of Epernay along the D1 road, known as the Route Touristique du Champagne. Additionally, you can see Reims marked. One of the powerhouses of Champagne, where many of the big names such, as Krug, Veuve Cliquot, and Taittinger are based. Part of our budget conscious travelling is to avoid larger towns and cities in favour of more rural locations so we skipped Reims. We did however visit Epernay prior to following this route and we’ll talk about that later.

Map of our Best France Passion sites in Champagne

We entered the Champagne region via Chateau-Thierry a small town to the West of the Montagne de Reims Natural Park. Whether you’re coming from the Belgian border like we were, or driving straight from Calais or Paris to Champagne, this is an appropriate gateway to the region. Indeed, the town is surrounded by a number of Champagne producers and the long stretch of grape vines begins.

Here is our list of the best France Passion sites in Champagne, we visited. Our thoughts and opinions about them. They are listed in the order of visitation, rather than preference:

Located in BRASLES, just a minute’s drive to the East of Chateau-Thierry. The first thing that struck us driving up the steep slope was the sharp contrast in style. Compared to France Passion sites we’d visited previously there was nothing rustic about this palatial villa. The sun was bleaching the newly laid, perfectly flat concrete and we were basking in its radiant heat. There wasn’t a spot of yellow paint missing on the house itself. Even the creeper on the side wall looked as if it had been perfectly manicured. It felt like we’d teleported to Beverly Hills. You could almost smell the wealth. Welcome to Champagne!

Wondering where exactly to say hello, (one of the rules of France Passion membership), we came across a reasonably clean toilet. Facilities! This was also a first for us when at a France Passion site. Then, the tinted glass door opened and we were greeted by Alice, the daughter of Philippe Deschelle. She welcomed us warmly and showed us a place to park on grass, amongst trees where it was a bit cooler.

We undertook our tasting as soon as we arrived. We were a little bit surprised that there was a 5 Euro charge per person. (In the guide it was described as ‘degustation gratuite’ – free tasting). Was Alice trying to make a little extra pocket money while her dad was away? It didn’t matter to us as this was our first tasting in Champagne and we’d forgotten what it said in the guide.

In any case Alice was extremely knowledgable. We got to taste four different blends, although the amounts poured seemed a little stingy on reflection. However, I was used to this from going to various wine tastings in London. It is a sign that the producer values their product. Alice obliged with a brief tour of their production facilities located right next door. Nothing was working that day so primarily we saw lots of stainless steel vats and thousands of stacked bottles. This is a very modern facility.

Champagne Philippe Dechelle owns nine hectares of vineyeards and produces about 80’000 bottles a year. They do not export. All of their champagne is drunk in France. We bought a bottle of the ‘Brut Prestige’, which cost 18 Euros. Made from 90% Meunier and the rest Pinot Noir. This is a robust Champagne with a medium intensity of flavour, which has hints of red berries and toasted nuts.

We also bought a pair of gorgeous champagne flutes for only 2 Euros each. They are of the style I was regularly asked for working in a wine merchant and at this price I would recommend going to Champagne Philippe Deschelle for these alone.

Not quite clean glasses at Philippe Dechelle – One of the best France Passion sites in Champagne.

In total we spent 32 Euros here so we were a little concerned for our budget. As it happened we needn’t have been, because our next experiences were even better.

Our hunt for the best France Passion sites in Champagne continues with this small producer located in the village of VERNEUIL. The Champagne house is described in the France Passion guide also as a bar. The tasting room is considerably larger and in comparison purpose built, compared to the annexe at Philippe Deschelle. There are lots of products for sale including local artisanal beer, (4.50 Euros a bottle). They also sell Ratafia. A fortified wine, similar to Port, made from grapes grown in Champagne.

Again, this place seems lavish. No quite Scarface lavish but on the way. A little more tasteful. The parking grounds are nicely manicured and there is a patio with tables and chairs for sipping your purchases. We parked up opposite the tasting ‘bar’ and introduced ourselves to another young lady, Lucile. Her English is patchy but it’s enough. She seemed a bit confused about what to do with France Passion members because this place also operates as an Aire. Again, a first for us in terms of facilities provided.

The deal is that if you buy something from them, even a beer, you get free use of electricity, hot showers and a toilet. This is an amazing deal. A good quality Aire would be at least 8 Euros and a campsite with the same facilities, upwards of fifteen. If you do not buy anything you can pay separately for these facilities, 10 Euros. But that would be silly.

Champagne Jacques Copin also excelled when it came to the tasting. Lucile simply asked us what champagne we would prefer; Something fruitier or something more minerally? (We found this approach similar in most Champagne Houses. Rather than taking you through a pre-defined order). She poured very generously sized glasses.

Champagne’s fortified wine!

We even got to try the Ratafia, yet another first for us. This is a sweet, straw coloured wine, with high acidity that stops it feeling gloopy in the mouth. The flavour has hints of sultanas and marmalade. Apparently it’s mainly drunk as an aperitif but it could be matched with a good quality vanilla based ice cream – one that’s not too sugary.

Quite tipsy, we purchased their cheapest blend, the Brut Tradition. Again, Meunier is the grape that dominates in this blend, reflecting the soil profile of the Marne’s right bank, where Meunier dominates the vineyards too. This cost only 15.50 Euros. We also bought an elegant glass for 4 Euros.

We really loved this place. It completely saved us a trip to a campsite so worked out very good value, as well as giving us a fun tasting. Total spend: 20 Euros

If we had known that the next stop on our hunt for the best France Passion sites also featured campsite facilities we may have done things in a different order.

Situated in the village of VANDIERES, this Champagne house runs a campsite and a gite in its grounds. We arrived and parked up near an electricity post and having spent some time using our levelling blocks to correct the sloping of the grassy garden, went to introduce ourselves.

We would describe the lady, Corrinne who greeted us as a little frosty. Being the start of high season they were quite busy. So we understand she may have been a little stressed. She saw where we had parked and asked us to move to a different spot as apparently it was a space for caravans. More shaded but on a major slope. This was a bit annoying. Champagne Nowack was also one of only two places in France that recorded our France Passion membership number. Good practice no doubt, but unnecessary.

There was no information provided about a charge for using the facilities. Unfortunately we were too late for tasting which stops at 7pm. But nevertheless we bought a bottle of the Brut Tradition, a blend of Meunier and Chardonnay, half and half. More lively on the palate than our previous bottles.

What was really great was the bottle came in a frozen cooler. Even when plugged into electricity it takes our fridge forever to reach a really cool temperature and while the other Champagne houses give you a cold bottle. By the time you get half way through, it’s too warm. So, this was really appreciated.

We asked for some information about Champagne Nowack in English but they only had it in French. Interestingly they make a still red wine here from 100% Meunier. We were a little sad we didn’t get to try this. Additionally the tasting that was just finishing was being conducted by Corinne’s husband Frederic in French. It is only Corinne that speaks a bit of English so you will have to catch her when she’s not too busy if that’s a concern to you.

Despite not getting our tasting we loved the surroundings of our parking – Tall trees with vines planted at the rear. The atmosphere was lively. Probably due to it being a paying campsite in high season but this provided a pleasant contrast to our previous stops. We would go back here for a tasting.

Having not paid for the champagne the previous evening, there was some confusion the next day and Corinne tried to charge us for camping. This was apparently eight Euros per person which is quite reasonable given the facilities. However, we reminded her we were France Passion members and she gladly rescinded the charge. Total spend 16 Euros.

In the tiny village of VILLERS-SOUS-CHATILLON this is a rather low key Champagne house. There are spaces for only two campervans and certainly no camping here. The grounds are very modern, similar to Philippe Deschelle. There is a gite available for paying guests but we stay here for free in our van with an amazing view overlooking the Marne Valley. There are no facilities to speak of other than the ability to purchase top quality champagne at amazing prices.

On the day of our visit only the senior lady of the family was available. Her tasting pours are generous and the tasting room is a lovely place full of old equipment. Despite not speaking English she is extremely patient and from what our limited ear could gather, Charpentier produce 140’000 bottles a year. Which makes them by far the largest producer we visited. They also export to thirty or forty countries.

A highlight of the tasting for us was the Brut Nature Blanc De Blanc. This is an ultra dry champagne because they have not added any ‘dosage’, (liquer added before second fermentation). Skinny champagne, if you prefer. The grape is 100% chardonnay and the precision is outstanding, as it exhibits fresh, pure, lemon and green apple flavours with a flinty minerality. Great for only 16 Euros!

Sunday Service is normal even for the best France Passion sites in Champagne!

If there’s one thing we’ve learned about travelling through rural France, it’s that nothing opens on a Sunday. The same is true of Champagne houses. We stopped in the village of Damery at CHAMPAGNE BLAISE LOURDEZ. Oddly the parking spot co-ordinates listed in the guide are a 20 minute walk from the Champagne House. This is not mentioned in the guide! (We were definitely in the right place as there we saw the distinctive France Passion green arrow signs). The walk along the banks of the Marne was pleasant but of course the village was deserted. When we got to Blaise Lourdez it appeared to be a modern house with a tasting room attached. There was no one around but there would have been plenty of space for campervans. We felt this was a little unwelcoming and decided to take our business elsewhere, hopefully exhibiting signs of life.

This meant leaving the Marne Valley and heading North East to the village of Bouzy. A name that always makes us chuckle. Hopefully we don’t need to explain why. We were headed for CHAMPAGNE REMY GALICHET. What we found was a massive warehouse style complex fronted by a huge windswept car park. It looked rather bleak and we couldn’t see any France Passion signs. We parked up and a lady from the house next door greeted us. She explained they were having lunch but we could have a tasting later. We feel a bit bad but we decided that actually the surroundings were too drab for us to park in so we left without saying goodbye. We didn’t want to disturb the family lunch!

Next stop in Bouzy was CHAMPAGNE HERBERT BEAUFORT. Just down the road from Galichet in the centre of the village. The buildings seemed more prepossessing but the gates were locked. No France Passion signs were displayed and like at Blaise Lordes we felt unwelcome. We made the executive decision to go to the next village, Ambonnay and give it one last try for the day.

We almost didn’t find this one. Which would have been a tragedy because it’s awesome! We had been following the Google maps directions to Champagne Dominique Foureur, which led us to a very narrow alley way where we could see no entrance to, or signage for the place. Driving down the alleyway looked impossible.

Feeling deflated by what we thought was our fourth failure of the day we made an exit through AMBONNAY intending to seek out some wild camping nearby. As it happened we found the actual entrance to Dominque Foureur, as we made our getaway. (Our mistake had been not to use the co-ordinates in the France Passion guide).

As the road was quite narrow and we had someone following us we had to do a u-turn further up and even better, when we returned to the entrance, Elisabeth and Dominique happened to be there. Our very own coincidental welcoming party was indeed very welcome.

This Champagne house is pure rustic charm. Parking up in the pretty surrounds of their courtyard, where a sleeping dog lay and numerous rescue cats washed themselves under the rays of the setting sun, we got straight on with the tasting. Elisabeth spoke excellent English and immediately poured a welcome glass, (a full one), of their Brut Tradition.

The soil in Ambonnay is different to the Marne Valley. Here it is chalk. Whereas the valley is sandstone. This means they do not grow Meunier. Here they grow primarily Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. The vineyards are designated Grand Cru. Basically that means they produce the best grapes you can get.

Where the money sleeps – Champagne Dominique Foureur

Foureur produces only 20’000 bottles a year from it’s 4.5 hectares of vines. But they sell some of their grapes to the big boys. You can find Foureur’s grapes in both Dom Perignon and Laurent Perrier’s Grande Siecle. Both of which retail for three figures.

Any trip to Champagne isn’t complete without a trip to the Caves. Elisabeth takes us down a steep flight of stairs into her rocky cavern, constructed in 1609! Here, they store 60-80’000 bottles because they age them in bottle for four years before releasing. If anything sums up the general demeanour of Champagne, it’s Elisabeth’s assertion that, “This is sleeping money”.

Elisabeth explains to us at length the process of making champagne; How the yeast is added; the neck frozen and the yeast removed; the ‘dosage’ added and so on and she shows us the tiny room they do all of this in.

Disgorging machine at Dominque Foureur – One of the best France Passion sites in Champagne

One lovely bit of insight is that they drink 800 bottles of Champagne a year themselves. We imagine most of it at parties! Ahhh to be borne into a Champagne family. Living the dream!

Given Ambonnay is recognised for the quality of its Pinot Noir, Foureur also produces Ambonnay Rouge. This is a silky young red with lots of strawberry notes and a hint of forest floor on the palate. We ended up buying two bottles of this as we’d been missing red wine!

To cap it all, Elisabeth generously allows us to plug in to their electricity and there are also toilets and showers, albeit cold ones. Total spend: 60 Euros (we bought gifts).

Epernay: Putting our hunt for the best France Passion sites in Champagne into perspective

The visit of a friend and the need for a shower gave us the excuse, as if one were needed to pay a visit to Epernay. What was it like? Well we stayed in a campsite, (Price = 25 Euros) We totally avoided the famous Avenue de Champagne. A tour of Moet & Chandon, located on this street, tasting not included is 12 Euros per person! Waste of money. We were planning to visit C.Comme, a very reputable Champagne bar where they do tastings of a wide variety of producers but we decided not to when we realised they were 33 Euros per person. Instead we did a champagne tasting at The Great Wines of France which cost only 10 Euros per person. Total spend in Epernay: 45 Euros…. Not great value compared to the France Passion sites, which are much more personal to boot.

Tasting in Epernay

Conclusion to our search for the best France Passion sites in Champagne

Of course we’ve picked a very small geographical area for our search compared to the Champagne region as a whole. This is because we travel on a budget and Champagne is a luxury good that commands a high price. Including gifts we spent a total of 144 Euros not including food. If you are on holiday that’s not so bad. We have overspent our budget but overspent it living the good life.

What we can take away from this experience is that cheap Champagne is not bad Champagne. It is not worth paying big bucks for ‘Grande Marques’, (which retail for a similarly high price in the UK). You can get great tasting bottles for an average of 16 Euros at all of the best France Passion sites in Champagne.

Another point worth noting is Champagne is not as stuffy as it might seem. Hilariously I had a shirt packed and we pressed it under the weight of our roof cushions. This was a waste of time as no one batted an eyelid at our usual hippy attire. Ultimately the Champagne houses are just happy if you buy a bottle or two.

The best thing however, is that some of the best France Passion sites in Champagne have facilities far beyond those found on dairy farms for example. For a small fee, or sometimes in exchange for making a purchase, you can save yourself an entire trip to an Aire or Campsite where you would undoubtedly spend more money. This way you can both save money living in a campervan or motorhome and more thoroughly, although sadly not literally, immerse yourself in Champagne.

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We hope you’ve enjoyed our guide to the best France Passion sites in Champagne. If you’d like to give us feedback, ask anything specific or give us advice on where we should go or what we should do next please leave a comment below, or email: antlou at vanutopia dot com

]]>http://vanutopia.com/our-adventure/best-france-passion-sites-in-champagne/feed/0Aerial Video: Spectacular Florentine Tower, Buire, Francehttp://vanutopia.com/our-adventure/aerial-video-florentine-tower-buire/
http://vanutopia.com/our-adventure/aerial-video-florentine-tower-buire/#respondWed, 12 Jul 2017 10:24:43 +0000http://vanutopia.com/?p=489Whilst Lou and I tour France in our campervan, we chanced upon an intriguing architectural beauty. The Florentine Tower of Buire. Moments like this are what our drone was made for so check out the short video we’ve made showing the Florentine Tower and immediate surrounds, from a birds-eye perspective. Where is the Florentine Tower …

]]>Whilst Lou and I tour France in our campervan, we chanced upon an intriguing architectural beauty. The Florentine Tower of Buire. Moments like this are what our drone was made for so check out the short video we’ve made showing the Florentine Tower and immediate surrounds, from a birds-eye perspective.

Where is the Florentine Tower of Buire Located?

The Florentine Tower is located just south of a town called Hirson in what the French call the commune of Buire, in the department of Aisne, in Northern France. The immediate surrounds include an old railway works with a cool semi-circular building kind of like a baseball stadium and of course, the railway itself which is still operational today. Before the second World War Hirson was the second most important railway junction after Paris which leads us on to….

What is, (or was), the Florentine Tower of Buire?

A gigantic railway signal box. At around 45 meters tall, the six storey behemoth presumably afforded its operators a great few of the tracks. Each floor held different bits of signalling equipment with a viewing point on the top floor. As you can see the full height of the tower reaches up way higher, due to the inclusion of four clock faces. Guess what? They point due North, South, East and West respectively. It was so easy to tell the time in Buire that local sales of wrist watches collapsed shortly after it was built in 1921 putting several jewellers out business. (#FAKEFACT)

Next to the Florentine Tower

Why is it called the Florentine Tower?

This one’s a bit loose. Apparently it’s meant to look like buildings in Florence. We’d say, ‘inspired by’ rather than ‘in the style of”. The architect was actually a French guy called Gustave Umbdenstock bu apparently the contractor who built the tower was Florentine. There’s certainly some Italian flair in the design, with those fancy tiles and and we suppose just calling it ‘The Tower of Buire’ would be a little dry.

Is the Florentine Tower working today?

As you might be able to tell from the video, the Florentine Tower is not currently operational. In fact, it hasn’t been operational since 1944. Bombed but still standing. Like so many other things in Northern France it stands as a sad reminder of just how stupid the human race can be . Its blank clock faces and hollow shell express perfectly the empty, bitter regret of pointless death. The Florentine Tower has been designated a historic monument since 1995.

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We hope you’ve enjoyed this piece. If you’d like to give us feedback, ask anything specific or give us advice on where we should go or what we should do next please leave a comment below, or email: antlou at vanutopia dot com